


we're collecting moments (tattoos on my mind);

by mevies



Category: Descendants (2015), Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/F, also this is very much self indulgent in a way and also a (belated) x-mas gift for a friend., and for everyone who's a lil bit upset about the series ending, basically everyone's in it a little i think, ben/harry & uma/lonnie, so. happy new year! enjoy my crappy writing., this is basically the pitch perfect au i think every fandom needs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 15:50:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13193385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mevies/pseuds/mevies
Summary: Joining in and making memories was not so bad when you like, pulled your head out of your ass and joined an acapella group in college because this hot girl from the activities fair barged into your shower that one day and demanded you duet with her - or something like that.Mal's still kinda figuring it out.





	we're collecting moments (tattoos on my mind);

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO THIS IS VERY LONG AND PROBABLY BAD BUT WHO CARES!!! If you add being upset about Bechloe not being endgame in the third movie and then adding the fact that Malvie is still not canon either to the mix, you get this extremely self-indulgent fic. Honestly, I don't know what this is, either, but after surpassing 18k words I figured I should probably finish it and post it. So, you're welcome. 
> 
> Heavily influenced by the movie and its script, a few things I added for my own sake, but Pitch Perfect doesn't belong to me, nor does Descendants. Because if they did, everyone would be gay and I wouldn't need to write this. Also, the fact that I love the girls from Descendants a lot and wish they would all just be friends and hang out played a big part in the writing of this, and yeah.
> 
> Enjoy!

Mal has never hated her mom. Like, she doesn’t necessarily like or enjoy the woman’s company – not that the woman would ever like, actually be present enough in her life for her to even enjoy that, so - but she doesn’t hate her. Not really.

Their relationship is tricky, to say the least. What with her mother leaving her with her absent father all those years ago and then suddenly acting entitled into controlling Mal’s life decisions, not to mention that Mal has a strong personality and so does Maleficent, and whenever they try to communicate with each other – Maleficent telling Mal to do what’s expected and Mal trying to communicate that no, she won’t do that because that’s not something she wants to do – it almost always ends up in a fight. Because Maleficent doesn’t particularly care about what Mal wants, or whatever.

So that’s the reason why Mal’s sitting on the small bench in front of her dad’s house, the house she’d grown up at and lived in during her formative years, surrounded by bags with almost if not all of her things packed in, waiting for the cab that would take her to the next thing Maleficent is forcing her to do, something that she’d really rather die than do.

_College._

And like, Mal fought against this. She really did. She’d never wanted to go to college, never had any interest in anything about it, having always dreamed of finishing high school and hightailing straight to Los Angeles, ready to live her dreams of becoming an actual music producer. But her mom had told her that her dreams weren’t realistic, and that she needed a graduation, that her dreams could wait. Obviously, Maleficent hoped that Mal would magically fall in love with all things academics and just give up on her dreams and find an “actual” career.

Mal scoffs at the thought, frowning when the cab parks in front of the house and she puts her computer that she’d been working on a new mix on back inside her bag and stands, greeting the taxi driver halfheartedly as he helps with her bags.

She takes a deep sigh once he starts the car and drives away from home.

-

She leaves the car, not really wanting to at all, and she’s instantly greeted by the sun glaring down at her and she internally groans at the prospect of having to use sunscreen like, every day, if she doesn’t want to end up looking like the lobster from The Little Mermaid.

( _He’s a lobster, right?_ )

There are a lot of people around, people saying their goodbyes to their parents and friends greeting their other friends, and there’s a lot of noise and happiness and emotions and – _fuck._ This is hell, like, literally.

Mal helps the driver with her stuff, and she thanks him and pays him for the ride, and she nods when a guy from the university staff comes over to help her with the bags.

At least she doesn’t have to carry it all by herself.

She’s watching the dude carefully pile up her bag, not wanting him to like, break her things, her headphones are wrapped around her neck and there’s a low hum of the song that she’d been listening to when she got here and the small vibrations of the bass pumping against her skin are a little ticklish, but she ignores it for the time being.

She’s about to start walking with the guy that’s helping her with her bags when a blonde girl seemingly shows up out of nowhere, a bright smile on her face as she takes in Mal, and her loud greeting makes Mal jump a little in surprise.

“Welcome to Auradon University! What dorm?” She asks, her eyes a little wide as she speaks, and Mal feels a little cornered and freaked out by it.

_(Is everyone here like her? Because if that’s the case, she has to leave immediately.)_

“Uh, Dragon Hall, I think.” Mal answers, trying to avoid eye contact with the girl in front of her. The girl nods, and motions to somewhere ahead of them.

“Okay, what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna go down this way, and then take the left and then-“ And like, there’s no way Mal’s ever going to remember all that, but she tries to pay attention to what the girl’s saying so she can at least pretend like she’ll remember the directions, but then this black car blasting a song she vaguely recognizes stops a few steps away from them, and the windows are rolled down so she can see a boy with brown hair belting out the lyrics while he plays the air guitar, and literally what the fuck is up with today, really.

The boy notices her watching, and instead of stopping whatever he was doing and being embarrassed by being caught by someone, he does something unexpected and starts singing the song _to_ Mal, and he has a smile on his face as he does it, and like. Mal really doesn’t know how to react to that. So she just stares and raises her eyebrows as he starts making guitar noises, fully putting on a show to Mal and whoever else was looking, and then the car drives away and Mal doesn’t know what just happened.

The sound of someone’s voice breaks her confused trance, though, and she looks back at the blonde girl to see that she was still giving her directions. She doesn’t seem to have noticed the boy from before, and she seems to think that the girl in front of her caught her directions, because she continues on her standard greeting instructions.

“And this is your rape whistle,” She says, handing Mal a small blue and yellow whistle with a way too preppy attitude about what she was giving the girl, then she adds, her maniac eyes taking an even more psychotic look, “Don’t blow it unless it’s actually happening.”

Mal stares for a few seconds, before she slowly and reluctantly takes it from the girl’s hand and takes it to her mouth, where she holds it with her teeth so she can carry some of her bags. The girl makes a contented sound, smiling brightly at Mal as the girl makes to walk away, and like.

_What the fuck did her mom get her into?_

-

Mal has never shared a room before.

Being an only child, she’s never had to share anything, really. But her room, specifically to someone like Mal, that valued privacy and her own space above everything else, was something that she had never shared and she had no idea how she’d manage to do it now.

She walks into her new room, quickly taking notice of how tidy half of it already was.  A girl with long, dark hair has her back to her, hanging something on a wall beside the window and Mal slowly makes her way towards the center of the room.

When the girl doesn’t turn around and Mal’s been standing there for a moment and it’s a little awkward, Mal figures she could maybe be the bigger person and like, greet the person she’d be sharing a room with for the year.

“Hey.” She says, lamely, and the girl turns around, finally taking notice of her presence, but doesn’t greet her back.

No, instead her blue eyes study Mal with little to no interest, as if she’s not impressed by the other girl’s “alternative” look, with her long bleached blonde hair with lavender tips, or her black clothing and piercings.

“I’m Mal,” she says, because they probably need to know that about each other, and also because she wants the girl to say something or for her to like, stop looking at Mal like that.

“Jordan.” She says curtly, and turns back to what she was doing. Mal stands there, and, well. Okay then.

She doesn’t want to push it with the girl, because like, _me too, girl,_ and also she doesn’t want to give the girl the wrong impression either – like, the impression that Mal’s friendly or wants to be here or something as ridiculous as that -, so she just writes it off as a successful interaction with her new roommate and starts on unpacking her things.

-

Mal is focused on the latest mix she’d started, having decided to take a break from unpacking for a few minutes, Jordan, her new roommate, busy with whatever it was that she was doing, both girls pretending the other wasn’t in the room, and like.

It was peaceful, and silent, and Mal decided that if this was how the rest of the year was gonna go, then sharing a room was not so bad. Then maybe college wouldn’t be so unbearable.

But of course, before she could even finish her thoughts, there’s a small knock on the door and then, “Campus police! Hide the booze!” comes from behind it before it opens to reveal Maleficent herself, and Mal groans internally. She really hoped she wouldn’t have to deal with her mom today.

“Oh, at least try to look happy to see your own mother, Mal!” The older woman said, walking in the room with a playful smile on her face. Mal fights the eye roll.

“I’m screaming internally,” Mal says under her breath, turning back to her computer as the woman turns to Jordan.

“You must be Mal’s roommate,” And like, _no shit, mom_ , but she continues, “I’m Maleficent, Mal’s mother. I teach Comparative Literature here.” Jordan looks as unimpressed by Maleficent as she’d been with Mal, and the woman’s eyebrows rise as the girl completely ignores her greeting.

A beat passes, and then Maleficent turns to Mal. “So, when did you get here? _How_ did you get here?” And there’s that tone again.

That tone that Maleficent used with Mal when she wasn’t happy with her, but didn’t want to make a scene or outright tell her that she was upset. A tone that Mal was fairly familiar with.

“I took a cab. I didn’t wanna be a bother.” Mal says, not looking up from her equipment. She can hear the sigh from behind her, but she doesn’t turn around.

“Mal, come on, you have to know you will never be a bother to me. You’re my daughter.” Maleficent said, her tone tired. Mal chuckles humorlessly.

“You almost got me there.” She says, and Maleficent looks like she wants to argue, but she glances at her daughter’s roommate, who’d been watching them but quickly averts her eyes when Maleficent looks at her, and she takes a deep breath before talking again.

“So, uh, have you guys been on the quad yet?” She asks, walking towards the window. “It’s spring time, all the students study on the grass-“

“I don’t need or want to study on the grass, mother, I want to go to LA, and get a job at a recording studio so I can get my dreams in motion.” Mal interrupts, sick of pretending like she’s okay with being here.

She starts unzipping more bags, because apparently she can’t take one break to mix without her mom interrupting her, so she gets back to the annoying task, ignoring her mother’s eyes on her.

( _This actually feels like torture._ )

“Oh, here we go again with this dream talk,” Maleficent rolls her eyes, “Mal, _this-_ “ she motions towards the mixing equipment and the computer set up on the girl’s desk, “is not a profession. This is a hobby, unless you’re some big shot like, I don’t know what you kids hear these days, is Vanilla Ice still a good example? Someone like that.”

Mal could swear she heard her roommate snort at that, and like. “That was never a good example, mother. And God, when will you understand that producing music, which is what I want to do, is a very respectable profession-“

“And I don’t doubt that, honey, but you’re going to get a college education first,” The woman interrupts, and Mal sighs again, “For free, I might add. End of story.”

Her tone implies that nothing Mal could ever say would change her mind, and Mal knows her mom well enough to know that that’s exactly the case. She was in it for good, now, and no fighting or arguing would change it.

It just wasn’t fair, but then again, was life ever fair to her?

( _Don’t open that door now, Mal._ )

“Great. So instead of getting real life experiences involving what I actually want to do with my life, I’m stuck in college for four years studying on the grass.”

There’s an awkward beat of silence as both women stare at each other.

“I’m going to the activities fair.” Jordan announces, then, breaking the other two’s stare contest as they turn to look at her, and she stands up to leave. Mal takes the opportunity.

“Me too.” She says, and Jordan rolls her eyes as she grabs her jacket. Mal turns to her mother, who looks like she’s about to argue again and try and get her daughter to stay back and fight about her dreams some more, “I’m going to the activities fair with my super close friend, Jordan.”

Mal is out the door before her mom can say anything else.

-

The activities fair kind of sucks.

There are a lot of tables with big banners and flyers with different colors and information, but none of them are of Mal’s interest. She’d caught a glimpse of a blue banner with the words “Auradon DJ’s” written in yellow and was about to walk towards the table when she’d noticed DJ’s stood for something other than what she’d hoped, and glumly walked away towards the opposite direction.

She’s about to give up and call it a day when a light blue flyer appears in her eyesight, combined by a cheerful, “Hi, any interest in joining our acapella group?”

Mal studies the flyer for a second, the pastel colors printed all over it being the first not-blinding-colors she’d seen in this campus so far, and then she looks back up at the two girls in front of her.

“Oh, right, this is like, a thing now.”

The girl on the right, the one who’d greeted her and handed her the flyer smiles at her and nods. Her dark brown curls bounce against her shoulders as she does, and she says, “Oh, totes! We sing covers of songs, but we do it without any instruments,” She says, as if she has to explain to Mal what acapella is, and the girl on her left is smiling and nodding along to it, and it’s like they hadn’t noticed the sarcasm in Mal’s voice before, “But it’s all from our mouths.” She concludes, and. Alright.

“Yikes.” Mal says, before she can help herself. At least she said it with a smile, right?

This doesn’t seem to deter the girl, though, because she continues, just as cheerfully, “There are four groups on campus. The Bellas, that’s us, we’re the tits,” The girl on her left smiles and nods, like that was the exact same word that she’d use to describe them, and Mal nods, “The AU Harmonics, they sing a lot of Madonna,” the girl motions to a group to their far left. Mal glances over to the small group in bright colors and shudders, “The High Notes,” the girl continues, motioning to a group behind her, and Mal glances over the girl’s shoulder towards a small group of people lying around the grass, looking completely and utterly out of it, and then Mal gets it. The girl seems to notice when Mal realizes, and she adds, “They’re not particularly… motivated.”

“And then there’s…” She trails off and both girls turn towards a group at a bigger distance from them than the others, formed exclusively by boys, who looked like they were in the middle of finishing up an impromptu performance, led by a guy with curly blonde hair and bulky figure.

The girl doesn’t finish the sentence, only exchanging a knowing look with the other girl and shrugging before turning back to Mal, expectantly.

“So, are you interested?” The girl asks.

“Sorry, it’s just – it’s pretty lame.” Mal says, shrugging a little. The girl with the dark brown hair deflates at that, and the girl on the left, a girl with tanned brown skin and lighter brown hair looks deeply offended by that.

“Aca-scuse me? Synchronized lady dancing to a Mariah Carey chart topper is not lame.” She says, giving Mal an incredulous chuckle as if she wants to snap Mal’    s neck for even implying such a thing.

Mal doesn’t have a response to that.

Turns out she doesn’t have to, because the girl on the right continues, “We sing all over the world and we compete in international championships.” She states, proudly, and the girl on the left nods eagerly.

“On purpose?” Mal asks, and the girl on the right looks like she’s out of things to say to try and sell Mal on it, but the girl on the left takes offense again.

“We played the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center, you bitch!” She said in that overly friendly tone, looking like she really would fight Mal if she tried her again, and Mal raised both eyebrows at that, impressed and amused.

The girl on the right puts a hand on the other girl’s shoulder, giving Mal a friendly smile as she tries to backtrack her friend’s words, “What Audrey means to say…” at that, the girl, Audrey, looks at her with her eyebrows furrowing, pretty much saying without actually saying it that she meant every word she said, but the other girl ignores her, “…is that we are a close-knit, talented group of ladies whose dreams is to return to the National finals at Lincoln Center this year.” She says, her eyes filled with hope, and Mal catches herself thinking that this girl is actually really fucking pretty, and her voice is really nice, and she looks so earnest – “Help us turn our dreams into a reality?” She asks, then, and that breaks Mal’s trance again.

The girl on the right looks hopeful while her friend, Audrey, looks like she would rather kill herself than have Mal join their group, so that makes Mal’s answer easier.

“Sorry, I don’t even sing,” She says, which is not technically true but it isn’t a lie either, and when the girl on the right deflates again, she adds, “But it was really nice to meet you guys.”

And then she turns to walk away, not wanting to see the girl with the brown hair look like someone just kicked her puppy and backed over it with their car four times, or the glare that Audrey is sending her.

_Well, this was a bust_ , Mal thinks to herself as she makes her way back towards her dorm.

-

A few days after that, Mal manages to get a job as an intern at the campus radio station. She works in the back, and the place is dark and there are hundreds and hundreds of CDs and boxes sprawled out everywhere, but it’s a job with something she likes, at least, and the boss is nice enough. She’s still not allowed in the booth because she’s a freshman, but.

On her third day of work, she’s in the middle of stacking a few CDs when she hears steps and then a guy walks in, holding the strap of his backpack over his right shoulder as he greets Zevon, the boss.

“Hey man, what’s up? I’m Ben.” He says, and Mal looks up at him and studies him for a second.

“You’re late.” Zevon says, simply, and grabs a box and hands it to Ben without saying anything else. He motions to Mal, and Ben gets the message.

Mal goes back to her stacking and it’s silent for a moment until, “Hey, I know you!”

“No, you don’t.” Mal says quickly, not looking up from the task at hand.

“Yeah, I do.” Ben insists.

“He doesn’t.” Mal repeats, looking up at Zevon, who quite frankly did not look like he gave a fuck if they knew each other or not.

“Totally know her.” Ben says then, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips.

“You can figure out as you stack the CDs.” Zevon says, his tone bored and uninterested, and he walks back into the booth.

Ben looks at Mal, then, and he smiles, “I do know you. I sang to you, I remember, because you were in a taxi.” He says, nodding to himself, and Mal doesn’t answer. “Wait, is your dad a taxi driver?”

That gets Mal’s attention, and the girl frowns. “No.”

“Oh.”

There’s silence between them, then, the only sound coming from the music softly playing in the room, and Mal sighs.

“You don’t like the job?” Ben asks, curious, and Mal looks up at him for a second before turning back to the CDs.

“I wanted to play music.” She answers, not really caring enough to lie about it. Ben nods, and then he smiles.

“Well, not me. I’m here because I really love stacking CDs.” He jokes, and at the lack of response from the girl, he continues, curious, “So, what’s your deal? You’re one of those girls that are all dark and mysterious and she takes off her glasses and amazingly scary ear piercings and you suddenly realize she was beautiful the whole time?”

Okay. What the fuck was that. Was Ben incapable of being quiet?

“I don’t wear glasses.”

“Then you’re halfway there.” Ben grins, and Mal blinks at him. They fall into silence again after that. And then, Ben breaks, “Man, I’m loving this.”

“You’re a weirdo.” Mal states, not playfully.

“Yes, I am. And so are you,” Ben smiles, and then adds as he takes an old, dusty The Smiths album and stacks it on the shelf, “It’s a good thing we’ll be best friends by the end of this week.”

“Definitely not.” Mal said, but she was fighting an amused smile. Ben noticed.

“You’ll see, Mal.” He winked.

_This is going to be a long shift_ , Mal thinks to herself when she notices Ben watching her as he stacks CDs in one of the shelves in front of her. _Great._

-

It’s been a month and Mal’s slowly getting used to her new life at college. She goes to all her classes, makes new friends, and is incredibly happy at every moment. It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.

But, not.

She actually misses most of her classes, and doesn’t make any effort to make new friends or anything like that, and she really is considering faking her own death and fleeing the country at every possible minute, so.

It’s not great.

It’s currently 9AM on a relatively sunny Monday, Mal still fast asleep, a mix of _Titanium_ playing through her headphones, having forgotten to turn off the music before she fell asleep a few hours prior, and the humming is peaceful and barely noticeable until it’s not and Mal wakes up with a jolt.

She looks towards the source of the noise and finds her mother struggling to get the sound off. She rolls her eyes, sighs and turns it off herself.

“This doesn’t look like your Introduction to Philosophy class.” Maleficent says, a stern look on her face.

“I’m posing an important philosophical question: if I don’t actually go to class, will it still suck?” Mal responds, voice void of any emotion. She sits down, and starts tidying up the equipment her mother messed up.

“Alright, I know you’re mad at me. I get it. But I can’t just let you waste your life away in this room while you mess with all these machines I don’t know anything about.” Maleficent says, her tone of a genuinely worried mother.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just support me?”

Maleficent sighs, and sits beside her daughter.

“The music industry is an unforgiving world, Mal. Have you not seen those VH1 Behind The Music docs?”

Mal rolls her eyes and sighs, “Man, ever since you got cable -“

“College is a transition period that prepares you for the scary things real life throws at you,” Maleficent cites, and Mal wonders what teaching book she got that from, “You make memories here. I see it every day. You’ve been here for a little more than a month, have you made any friends?” She asks, knowing very well the answer she would get.

Mal shrugs. “Jordan is my friend.”

Jordan, who had stayed quiet during the entire interaction, studying in her own desk, quickly denied that with a dry “nope.”

Maleficent ignores her, “Just try something. Put yourself out there.”

“I just got a job at the radio station.”

Maleficent rolls her eyes, “I’ve seen that place. It’s dark and dirty, and has what? Three weirdos working there?”

Mal glares. “Four, now.”

Maleficent sighs and continues, “You gotta do something, Mal. Like…” She looks around, as if looking for something, and then visibly brightens as her eyes catch sight of the flyer sitting on her desk, “Like that. Do that. Try something new. And if in a year you _still_ don’t want to be here, if you _still_ want to try to be some big time music producer, then…” Maleficent sighs again, “I’ll help you move to LA.”

Mal brightens visibly, “Whoa, really?”

“Yes, really.” Maleficent nods, giving her daughter a small smile. “But I really need to see you try, Mal. Make friends, go out there. This is college. Join in!”

Mal nods, and her mother gives her a real smile that Mal tries to return, and Maleficent squeezes her shoulder before she leaves the room.

Mal glances at the audition flyer for the acapella group for a moment, before she sighs and grabs her basket of toiletries and her towel and heads towards the bathroom.

-

Mal feels a little giddy. Like, not completely because she still has to do well on her part of the agreement, and she’s always struggled with social interactions and whatnot, so that would be tricky, but she was willing to try, and that was improvement enough.

She’s deadset on completing this year and then just up and leaving college to LA like her mom told her she could (and would help her on), so she would not let her anxiety and general dislike of being around people get in her way.

She’s feeling so upbeat – something that’s not very common for a girl like her, she’ll admit - that she starts humming to the song that had been playing when her mother woke her up, until she’s smiling a little at the memory of the conversation that took place after that, and she’s full on singing now. Thankfully, the shower stalls are all empty as Mal sings along to the melody of _Titanium_ in her head.

Or so she thought.

She’s still humming, waiting for the water to warm up, when suddenly: “You _can_ sing!”

Mal jumps, letting out a startled scream as she turns, almost losing her balance as she does so, and attempts to cover her bits with her loofa and her hands.

Standing before her, the dark haired girl with the light brown eyes from the other day smiles brightly, completely naked, her hair up in a messy bun, as if this was normal occurrence. Mal yelps again and tries to close the curtains.

The girl opens it again.

“How high does your belt go?” The girl asks, because she doesn’t notice, or ignores, Mal’s discomfort, or maybe she just doesn’t care.

“My what?!” Mal asks, incredulous that this was actually happening, “Oh my God!” She says when the girl reaches over and turns the water off.

“Your voice is beautiful. You have to audition for the Bellas!” The girl continues, looking at Mal seriously.

“I can’t concentrate on anything you’re saying until you cover your junk.” Mal says, then, avoiding all forms of eye contact with the naked girl in front of her.

“Just consider it!” The girl continues, and Mal slowly reaches over towards the shower curtains and pulls it over, hiding her body behind it, “One time, we sang back up for _Prince_. His butt was so tiny I could cover it with one hand.”

_Alright_.

Mal tries closing the curtains again, but the girl stops her before she does it. Mal sighs and turns around; deciding that baring her behind instead of the front was a lesser evil. She doesn’t notice when the other girl’s lighter brown eyes check her out.

“Seriously, I am _nude_.”

The girl, as expected, completely ignores her, “You were singing _Titanium_ , right?”

That catches the blonde by surprise, and before she can stop it, she’s giving the girl a small smile, “ _You_ know David Guetta?”

The girl rolls her eyes, “Have I been living under a rock? _Yeah_ . That song is my jam.” And then, she gives her a coy smile, her face getting closer to Mal’s as she continues, “My _lady_ jam.”

Mal looks away, “That’s nice.”

“It is.” She giggles, “That song really _builds_.” And then, she winks.

“Gross.”

There’s a beat, and then, “Will you sing it for me?”

“Dude! No! _Get out!_ ” Mal flushes. The girl notices her blushing and tries to fight a laugh.

“Not for _that_ reason! I’m not leaving here ‘til you sing, so…” She trails off, expectantly, and Mal sighs.

She looks to the ceiling, then at the ground, and then she waits a beat until her green eyes meet with the girl’s expectant brown, and she mutters, “This is ridiculous.”

“Maybe.” The girl shrugs, but then she adds in almost defiance, “But I can stand here all day.”

Mal gives her a sarcastic grin, and the girl responds by letting out a dramatic long breath. Mal accepts defeat, recognizing that the girl most likely wasn’t joking and _would_ stand there and possibly follow her around everywhere if she didn’t give her this one thing.

Honestly, _fuck_ college.

Mal rolls her eyes, but turns around, loofa and hands strategically placed, and reluctantly starts.

“ _I’m bulletproof, nothing to lose, fire away, fire away_ …”

The girl surprises her by jumping in, harmonizing with her on the next verse. “ _Ricochet, you take your aim, fire away, fire away. You shoot me down, but I won’t fall, I am titanium. You shoot me down, but I won’t fall, I am titanium.”_

They sound incredible together. The girl has a sweet, yet rich voice that blends perfectly with Mal’s, and they both have smiles on their faces as they end the harmonization together.

There’s a pause - a pause that feels a lot like a _moment,_ but Mal doesn’t want to call it that – and then Mal has to look away when a grin starts making its way into her face, and she remembers that they’re both very much naked.

The girl seems to come to the same realization as her.

“Oh, yeah, I’m pretty confident about…” she motions towards her own body, “all this.”

Mal gives her a timid smile, then, and nods, “You should be.”

The girl gives her a wide smile, and thanks her, and then she suddenly turns around and grabs the towel that Mal had hung earlier and hands it over to her, a small smile on her face, “I’m Evie, by the way.”

“I’m Mal,” Mal says as she grabs the towel and holds it in front of her body, and then she awkwardly adds, because the girl is still standing there, naked, smiling at her like she made her whole year, “I still need to shower.”

Evie seems to catch on to what she was doing – breaking into another girl’s shower stall while they’re both naked and forcing her to duet -, and she nods, smile still in place. “Okay, bye Mal.”

She turns to leave, then, and Mal’s eyes totally don’t check her out as she does so. Evie shouts a “see you at auditions!” over her shoulder as she disappears and Mal finally closes the curtain, ready to shower in peace.

As she grabs the shampoo bottle she had accidentally dropped when the girl ambushed her, Mal smiles to herself, knowing very well she had made her decision.

-

Her decision leads her towards the campus auditorium on a Friday afternoon, cursing a little to herself when she notices a few people walking out and talking amongst themselves about a Kelly Clarkson song that she hasn’t heard in years, and she realizes that maybe she’s missed the audition.

Something makes her walk in when she does, though, because she peeks through the open door in the left corner of the stage, and Evie immediately catches her eyes and perks up.

She’s sitting on the left side of Audrey, again, and her hair is falling over her shoulders in beautiful curls. Mal licks her lips and walks in further as Evie tells everyone there’s one more audition for them to go through, and Mal instantly fights the blush as she sees all the eyes on her.

The boys from the acapella group from the activities fair are sitting far down the rows, watching her curiously, and she ignores everyone as she focuses her eyes on Evie’s beaming face and warm eyes. Audrey, by her side, looks utterly and completely lost, and Mal notes she almost looks like she could belong in the High Notes – which were sitting a few rows over from the two girls - if the lost look on her face wasn’t caused by the absolute dread of having to actually consider putting Mal in her group.

“Um, I didn’t know we had to prepare that song.” Mal says as she makes her way towards the front and center of the stage, coming to face the two girls. One frowning and the other smiling widely up at her.

Evie quickly waves her off, shaking her head, “Oh, that’s okay! Sing anything you want.”

Mal pauses for a second, and then she kneels and reaches over towards the table in front of the stage. She gestures towards a pencil cup, “May I?”

Evie nods quickly, and Mal winces a bit as she removes the pens from the cup, avoiding the girls’ eyes. She glances up briefly as she settles down on the ground, and smiles awkwardly back at Evie, who’d been watching her with encouraging eyes.

She begins, then, something that she’d learned a few years ago on YouTube because she was bored and decided she could use on this – it was dorky enough – and she takes a deep breath before starting to sing.

“ _I got my ticket for the long way round, two bottles of Whiskey for the way, and I sure would like some sweet company and I’m leaving tomorrow, what do you say?”_ She chances a look towards the girls, focusing on not messing up the rhythm as she does so, and Evie looks absolutely enthralled with her, as if Mal was doing a lot more than just using a pencil cup as drums, and Audrey’s face is absolutely blank as she watches Mal go on onto the next verse.

“ _When I’m gone, when I’m gone, you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone. You’re gonna miss me by my hair, you’re gonna miss me everywhere. Oh, I know you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone.”_ She finishes by setting the cup down one final time and awkwardly bringing her hands together on her lap as she finally looks up at the girls in front of her.

The first thing she notices is the wide, hopeful smile on Evie’s face, the glint she finds in her brown eyes making something inside Mal stir, and then Evie is glancing to her right, towards an Aubrey with calculating eyes and pursed lips, and Mal knows she’s made it.

She’s in an acapella group now.

Seriously, _fuck_ college.

-

It’s later that night when there’s a knock on Mal’s door, and Jordan only stirs before turning in her sleep. Mal sighs and removes the headphones from around her neck and stands from her computer chair, dragging her feet towards the door to chew out whoever was on the other side of it for knocking at this time.

She doesn’t, though, when she opens the door to find a beaming Evie, dressed casually in a blue sweater and high waisted jeans, finishing by knee high black leather boots, holding up a hood excitedly.

“What is this?” Mal asks cautiously, and motions for the girl to walk in silently. Her room is dark, the only light coming from Mal’s computer, and Evie closes the door quietly after she walks in.

“I’m supposed to take you to initiation, but something told me you wouldn’t like to be ambushed, so I decided that maybe I should let you know first,” She explains, her voice low, and Mal ignores the shiver that runs through her spine at her tone, “You should grab a jacket and put on some shoes, there’s a small gathering thing later as well.”

Mal blinks, and Evie smiles and winks, “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, either, but you can keep a secret, right?”

Mal nods dumbly, and she grabs her jacket and sits down to put on her boots quickly before she grabs her phone and her keys and closes her laptop, very aware of Evie’s eyes on her.

Then, the room is engulfed in darkness save by the lighting coming from outside, and Mal feels a hand find hers and she lets herself be pulled towards the door.

They stand outside in front of the door after Mal locks the door, then, and Evie raises the hood she’d been holding all along. Mal raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything.

“May I?” Evie asks, and Mal almost wants to laugh at the irony of the girl that barged into her shower earlier in the week ask her if she can put a hood over her head and lead her towards somewhere she doesn’t know.

Mal shrugs, because honestly, what the hell. Her mother told her to join in and make some memories, right?

She allows Evie to pull the hood over her head and wills her heartbeat to behave once the girl pulls her closer to her own body and holds her by the waist as they start walking together.

She can feel the warmth coming from Evie and everywhere they touch feels like pure electricity, and she feels her face flushing, not only because of the hood over her head. She thanks God that Evie can’t see her face right now.

“Don’t worry, I got you.” Evie whispers, mistaking Mal’s rapidly beating heart for anxiety.

Honestly, Mal thinks her mom would be proud of her for putting this much effort into socializing and making memories.

-

Audrey is sort of a freak. Like, not in _that_ way, which, gross, but like. She’s staring at a group of girls while she’s holding a chalice and telling them to drink the blood of the sisters that came before them, which what the fuck, actually, and then Evie is grabbing the chalice from her friend’s hands and presenting it to Mal.

“Dude, _no_.” Because like, Mal’s not about to drink some weird cult blood thing, thank you.

“Don’t worry, it’s Boone’s Farm.” Evie whispers reassuringly, giving her a small wink, and Mal takes it dubiously.

It doesn’t taste like blood or anything suspicious, so Mal lets herself relax and she studies the room around her as she waits until all the girls in the room take their own sips. The room is dark, only partially lit by the glowing light of the candles around them, and Mal really feels like this is some weird, all female cult thing. Audrey quickly walks down the line of girls, handing them all blue and yellow scarves silently.

She almost doesn’t notice when Evie walks back towards the front, setting the chalice down. Audrey follows her right after, and they stand before the girls with serious expressions on their faces and Mal can’t help but feel uneasy about what’s to come.

_Is it too late to back out, now?_

“Now, if you’ll all place your scarf in your right hand.” Evie instructs, and the girls scramble to do as told. Mal misses the small smile playing on the corner of Evie’s lips as she watches Mal awkwardly following her instructions.

“I, sing your name.” Audrey instructs, and Mal almost laughs when she winces at the sound that comes out of the girls’ ‘harmonization’. “Promise to fulfill the duties and responsibilities of a Bella woman.”

The girls repeat it, Mal half-heartedly doing so as she glances around the group.

Audrey smiles and continues, “And I solemnly promise to never have sexual relations with a Treblemaker or may my vocal cords be ripped out by wolves.”

Literally _what._

The girls look around to each other, then, struggling to repeat the words as some of them frown in confusion or just general panic, in Mal’s case, at what kind of cult activity led by a total psycho they had just joined.

In the end they do it, and then Audrey is smiling and Evie full on beaming, and Audrey says, “Congratulations, you’re all Bellas now.”

Everyone in the room but Mal cheer, the lights turn on and then a girl with green braids and a leather jacket is walking over towards the front where the table is and motioning for the chalice, “Can I have the rest of that?”

Evie nods at her, smiling still, and Mal chuckles when the girl whoops and grabs it, downing it all in a big gulp.

The girl catches her chuckling once she sets the chalice back down, and gives her a smile. “I’m Uma, playing the position of alto.”

Mal smiles, amused, and introduces herself, “Mal. Same.”

“Twinsies.” Uma says, motioning towards the both of them, chuckling at her own joke.

“Almost identical.” Mal fires back, sarcastically, and they both laugh.

“I like you, Mal.” Uma says, and then she glances towards Audrey and Evie, who’d been watching the exchange. “So, when we kicking off that party I wasn’t’ t supposed to know about?”

Audrey glares at Evie, who just winces. “You had one job.”

Evie barely mouths a sorry before Audrey is calling all the girls back and telling them to follow her out, and Mal, Uma and Evie stay back as Evie blows out the candles and Mal watches her do so with amused eyes. She’s about to crack a joke when Uma speaks up.

“Is there more of that blood drink thing in a bottle somewhere?”

Mal laughs again, and so does Evie, and Mal thinks that maybe this cult she just joined isn’t so bad.

-

They make their way towards the amphitheatre, the group of girls led by Audrey and reared by Mal, Uma, Evie and an Asian girl with long brown hair that had introduced herself as Lonnie a few minutes before.

“Ladies, welcome to your aca-initiation.” Audrey calls out from the front, and Mal rolls her eyes at the pun, “Prepare to soften the beach.”

The girls in the front look confusedly at each other at that, but follow Audrey anyway. Mal, Uma and Lonnie stand behind, watching as the group sparses out.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here.” Mal confesses to Uma after a moment.

Uma smiles widely, “Livin’ the dream! I still can’t believe they let my sexy ass in.”

“Me too!” Lonnie exclaims, “For some reason, girls are threatened by me.” She frowns, putting her hands on her hips and by default opening her jacket, exposing her cropped top and rock hard abs. Mal and Uma gape at her. Lonnie, not noticing this, continues, “So, if I drink too much tonight, can I count on one of you to hold my hair back when I puke?”

There’s a beat of silence, and Mal watches in amusement as Uma studies the girl in front of them, taking in her abs and general form. Then, the girl nods. “Yeah, for sure. I can do that for you.”

Lonnie smiles gratefully, and gives them both a wink before she walks off, Uma’s eyes following her as she does so.

Mal is about to make a comment when someone yells out her name, and she looks ahead to find Ben making his way towards her, climbing up the stone seats.

He’s smiling widely, and Uma takes this as her opportunity to leave and ‘soften the beach’ herself, leaving Mal alone with a grinning Ben.

“Do my eyes deceive me or are you a Bella?” He pretends to wipe his eyes, and Mal rolls her eyes but gives him an amused smile. “Think of all the memories we’ll make together being aca-buddies and all that!”

“Nope.” She responds, trying her hardest not to chuckle at his antics.

“It’s inevitable.” He says, seriously, his eyes shining with mirth.

“You’re really drunk right now, I don’t think you’ll remember any of this.” Mal says, and he shakes his head.

“I’m absolutely plastered, but I will remember this moment.” He says, earnestly, and Mal chuckles.

“I don’t think you will.”

“I promise I will remember every second, bestie.” He grins, and Mal groans and pushes him back by the chest. He lets himself fall back for a moment before he comes back, and smiles.

“See, I can still stand.”

“I can push harder.” She threatens, fighting back a smile, and he chuckles.

“You need a drink.” He nods to himself and Mal doesn’t disagree. “You need to get on my level.”

Before Mal can say anything, he’s walking away and her vision is completely blocked by brown hair and excited light brown eyes, and then her hand is being grabbed in a strong grip.

She gulps and licks her suddenly dry lips.

“Hi!” Evie greets cheerfully, and Mal smiles back, “I’m so glad that I met you.” Evie is slurring her words a bit, and Mal feels butterflies in her stomach at the girl’s words. But then she’s being pulled until her face is centimeters away from Evie’s, and she holds her breath. “I think that we’re gonna be really fast friends.”

Mal thinks Evie glanced down at her lips for a second, but she ignores it and nods, smiling amusedly at the drunken girl in front of her. “Yeah, well, you’ve seen me naked, so…” She trails off, shooting the girl a wink and then steals a glance at the girl’s lips. Evie nods in agreement, smile still in place.

There’s a moment - and Mal doesn’t want to think about how there are a lot of those with Evie – where their faces are still really close as they smile to each other, until Evie breaks their trance and runs her hands up and down Mal’s arms twice before she’s leaning back, still grinning. “I’m gonna go get a drink now, I’m pretty thirsty.” She winks, and Mal is about to comment on that when there’s a slap on her behind before Evie is walking away, shouting a ‘see you later!’ over her shoulder and Mal is telling her to make good choices instead, still pretty flushed.

Mal wonders if Evie is aware of what she’s doing to Mal’s heart.

Overhead, someone turns on the music and everyone cheers as Keep Your Head Up starts playing and everyone’s dancing and singing along, and Mal watches in amusement as Ben makes his way back up to her, holding two red cups in his hands, now, trying to sing along to the song and it’s obvious that he’s never heard it before.

He hands a red cup to Mal, who thanks him quietly, and then he takes a sip of his own. He turns around, facing the people dancing ahead of them.

“This is awesome.” He states. Mal studies him and then the group ahead of them and.

Well.

“It’s definitely something.” She says, taking a sip of her drink.

Ben nods, but doesn’t look back at her. Then, he shouts. “ _We are the kings of campus!”_

Mal cringes and wants to like, run away and hide as some people cheer and others just glance at him, and then she catches Audrey looking at them with suspicion, standing beside a dancing Uma.

“Dude, keep it down.” Mal says, grabbing him by the back of his jacket and forcing him to step down from the top of a seat. He obliges, and then he gulps down his drink, handing the empty cup to Mal and running down the rows towards the dancing people, and Mal shakes her head.

Overhead, she catches sight of Evie dancing with a tall boy with messy hair and perfect jawline and gulps down her drink.

Her attention is stolen by Uma, who’s dancing her way up the stairs to meet Mal, smiling widely and pulling her towards the others.

“Come on, Mal.” The girl says, and Mal lets herself be led by her.

Her eyes keep looking for Evie for the rest of the night, and Mal doesn’t even want to think about what that might mean.

So she pretends it doesn’t happen and that she’s not bothered when she finds Evie dancing with different people – boys and girls – every time her eyes manage to spot her.

-

The first day of rehearsal, Mal strolls into the big room to find that all the girls were already there, Uma and Lonnie standing by a board with pictures of the past Bellas framed on. She catches Uma commenting on how they ‘kept it tight’ and chuckles.

She studies the room, then, her eyes landing on Audrey, and she rolls her eyes when she catches sight of the girl subtly putting a tally beside Mal’s name on the whiteboard next to her.

She caps the pen, giving Mal a stern look before she claps her hands to get the girls’ attention. “Okay! Sopranos in the front and altos in the back!”

The girls scramble towards the chairs and sit down where they were instructed to, and Evie makes her way towards Audrey to stand in the front. Mal sits down beside Jane, an awkward girl that didn’t really speak at all.

“As you can see, Jade is not here.” Audrey says, motioning towards an empty chair in front of a girl that Mal hadn’t caught the name of. “Last night, she was Treble-boned. She’s been disinvited from the Bellas.” She says as she grabs the chair and folds it closed, putting it aside. The girls look around each other, and Mal snorts.

“Wait, that oath was serious?” She asks, amusedly.

“Dixie Chicks serious.” Audrey states seriously. Mal raises her eyebrows, “You can fool around with anyone you want, just not a Treble.”

Mal misses it when Evie shoots a glance her way.

“That’s not going to be easy,” Lonnie says, gesturing towards her crotch, “He’s a hunter.”

There’s a pause, and then, “You call it a dude?” Mal asks, amused. Lonnie looks back at her and nods, smirking.

“Lonnie, the Treblemakers don’t respect us. They treat us like we’re one big joke,” Audrey says, her tone slightly threatening. Mal thinks she looks like a psychopath, “And if we let them penetrate us, we’re giving them our power.”

Lonnie crosses her legs, then, and Mal winces. Uma raises her hand, and as if reading Mal’s thoughts, she says, “That’s not a good enough reason to use the word ‘penetrate’.”

Audrey ignores her and continues, moving towards the girl that Mal hadn’t caught the name of from before.

“Anyone got something they want to confess?” She asks, eyeing the girl pointedly. The girl avoids eye contact, trying to make herself look small, but everyone’s eyes are already on her.

Audrey stares harder, and the girl crumbles under pressure.

“It was an accident, I-“

“Turn in your scarf and go.” Audrey says, face solemn.

The girl looks like she wants to argue, but Audrey only holds her hand out expectantly. The girl sighs in defeat and grabs her bag, pulling the scarf from it and handing it over to Audrey.

There’s an awkward beat, and then Audrey motions for the girl to get up from her chair and leave. The girl does, and she’s about to leave when Audrey stops her. She looks at her, hopeful, but Audrey doesn’t waver. Instead, she glances at the chair the girl just vacated.

“Take your chair.”

The girls glance around the room, avoiding eye contact with each other as the uncomfortable sound of the girl dragging the metal chair through the floor fills the silent room, until it finally stops and the girl leaves, the sounds of crying being the last thing they hear from her.

There’s a pause, and then Mal speaks up.

“Was that necessary?”

Evie looks a little guilty and as uncomfortable as everyone else does, well, everyone but Audrey, who’s looking at Mal with serious eyes.

“This is war, Mal. And it’s my job to make sure that my soldiers are prepped at go time with three kick ass songs sung and choreographed to perfection. We only have four months until regionals so if you have a problem with how I run the Bell- _ah_!” She recoils and covers her mouth. She turns around, and Evie quickly makes her way towards her friend, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder while she runs the other up and down her back in comforting motions.

“Audrey, relax. We can’t have a repeat of last year.” She says, quietly.

Not quietly enough, because the other girls hear her, and then Jane is raising her hand. Audrey takes a deep breath and looks like she’s got herself in control, and both Audrey and Evie notice the girl’s hand in the air. Evie nods at her to go on.

“What happened last year?” She whispers, and everyone else leans in to hear it. Evie frowns, and Audrey is still controlling her breath.

“What are you saying?” Evie asks, her tone apologetic, as if Jane wasn’t the one at fault for her not hearing her.

Jane sighs, but then she repeats herself, a little louder, but still whispering, “What happened last year?” A beat, and then, “And do you guys want to see a dead body?”

Evie stares, and Audrey pauses her breathing. “What?”

Mal looks from Jane to the two girls at the front, and they both look terrified at the prospect of having heard what they thought they did, just like everyone else in the room. Jane looks unbothered, still curious, and then Uma is pulling out her iPad from her bag and opening YouTube.

Next thing they know, they’re all hunched over Uma’s shoulder as they all watch a grainy video of Audrey projectile vomiting into the audience as everyone gasps and Evie runs towards her, kneeling down by her side to help her.

There are a few laughs, and some groans as the girls watch the video in awe. Audrey stands in front of the room, fiddling nervously with the scar she’d confiscated from the girl as she relives that moment, and Evie’s rubbing her shoulder in comfort.

When Lonnie tells Uma to click on another video, Audrey snaps out of it and claps her hands, “Enough! It happened, it’s over.”

The girls start walking back to their seats, and Uma locks her iPad’s screen and puts it back in her bag, still chuckling at the video. Mal watches as Evie looks at Audrey with concerned eyes, and she wonders if maybe she’s missed something between the two of them, the image of Evie running towards a sick Audrey on stage coming back to mind.

Evie seems to always be comforting the other girl.

Mal purses her lips at the thought and the uncomfortable feeling it brings her.

“We’ll practice every day for at least two hours, seven days a week, and I trust you’ll add your own cardio.” Audrey says, looking from girl to girl, and Mal straightens up immediately.

“Why cardio?” She asks, her voice nearing panic. Uma seems to share the sentiment.

“Yeah, don’t count me down for cardio.” She says, shaking her head.

Audrey fakes a smile, “Okay, moving on.” She turns to Evie, who’s now holding a stack of papers, “This is a list of all the songs we’ve ever performed. You’ll notice that we only perform songs sung by famous women.” As she says this, Evie hands a small amount of papers to each girl on the right end of the two rows, giving Mal a wink as she hands her some of it to pass along. Mal gapes at her for a moment, but then she shakes her head to break out of the trance, grabbing her own list and handing the others to Jane. She skims through the list to avoid Evie’s watchful eyes.

She pauses, and then she scoffs, “There’s nothing from this century on here.”

Audrey turns to her, looking like she would fight Mal if needed, “Because we don’t stray from tradition.” She states, her tone making it clear that this was not up for debate.

Evie gives Audrey a small smile when the girl turns to her with her own smile, and then Mal catches Evie’s eyes when Audrey walks towards the whiteboard. Mal gives her an amused look and pointedly glances at the list, mouthing a ‘seriously?’ to her, to which Evie only clears her throat and shakes her head, fighting back her own amused smile.

“Now this,” Audrey motions to the board, and then she turns it over to reveal a really complicated chart filled with things Mal doesn’t understand, “is how we’ll become champions.”

Mal swallows her groan.

-

Turns out acapella is a lot more tiring than she’d originally thought.

Throughout practice, for about two hours, Audrey had them run up stairs and down again, and then practice dancing in heels, and then there was vocal training and- it was just _so_ much, and Mal wonders if she was on crack for joining in at all.

And don’t even get her started on Evie –the girl apparently didn’t know what boundaries or personal space were, and she’d taken it upon herself to help Mal how to do the choreography – a choreography that, mind you, was not complicated in the slightest and she had not bothered to help any other girl on it. Only Mal.

So, not only was Mal breathless from all the vocal and physical exercise, but she was also still trying to gather herself from the closeness with the brown haired girl.

There was a moment in which Uma had the right idea and decided to quit the running and just lay down, and when Audrey had found her in between the rows of chairs, she’d stated that she was doing some horizontal running and Mal had tried her best not to laugh at Audrey’s dumbfounded expression.

A few minutes after that, though, Audrey seemed to sense that the other girls were done for and had called it a day.

Jane seemed to have whispered something again, because Audrey gave her a weird look and mutter something about not being able to hear anything she was saying.

Mal walked over to where Audrey was standing, and asks, “Hey, Audrey, did we just learn the same choreography from that video?”

Audrey ignores her. “Okay, don’t forget to pick up your performing schedules,” Mal squints, but smirks as she notices the girl deflecting her question, “We have a gig next week. That’s right, _next week_.” The girls gather around her as she hands over the schedules.

“Guys, it’s Sigma Beta Theta’s annual Fall Mixer, they hire us every year as their entertainment.” Evie informs, and the girls nod as they study the schedule.

“Okay, hands in, Bellas!” Audrey exclaims and puts her fist out, Evie quickly following her lead. The girls stare at her.

“Hands in, aca- _bitches_ !” She all but shrieks, the psychopath look back in her eyes. The girls scramble to do as told, and Audrey forces a smile as they sloppily follow her instructions. “Sing _ah_ -“

“ _AHHH._ “ Uma interrupts her, making the girls jump at the sudden noise. Uma gives them a happy smile.

“No, no, no.” Audrey stops her, looking like she could snap at any moment, the psychotic smile that was starting to become her trademark thing still in place, “It was actually on _three_ , Uma.”

“Ahhh.” Uma drawls out, chuckling a little at herself. Mal chuckles amusedly from her right, and Uma sends her a wink.

Mal thinks that Uma is like, one of her favorite people in the world, because she seems to enjoy messing with Audrey just as much as she does, and she’s hilarious as she does so, and like.

That makes Uma pretty cool in her book.

“Okay, let’s try that again. On three. One, two –“ And Audrey sings, and so do half of the group, while the other half actually counts to three, hurriedly starting to sing the note when they notice the others doing so. It sounds like a fucking mess, and Mal winces. Audrey tries to school her expression, but she can’t help the shudder as she runs her hands nervously over her face, “Okay, we’ll work on that first thing next time!” She says in forced excitement.

The girls start to shuffle out, and Mal is about to follow behind Uma when Audrey unexpectedly calls her over.

Mal spins around. “What’s up?”

Audrey offers her a fake friendly smile, and motions towards the girl’s ear, filled with piercings, completely visible as Mal had tucked her hair behind it earlier. “You know you’ll have to take those ear monstrosities out for the Fall Mixer.”

Mal chuckles. “You really don’t like me, do you?”

Audrey pauses, and then, “I don’t like your attitude.”

Well, at least she was honest. But still.

“You don’t even know me.” Mal says, because it was the truth. Audrey seems to consider this, before she shakes her head.

“I know you have a toner for Ben.” She says, her tone somehow bordering overly friendly and also threatening. Mal thinks that’s real talent. But still, Mal doesn’t know what the fuck she was talking about, so she just blinks at Audrey.

“A toner?” Audrey repeats, as if it’s obvious and Mal’s the stupid one, “A musical boner. I saw it at Hood Night. It’s distracting.”

“Yeah, that’s not a thing. Ben’s my friend,” Mal shakes her head, frowning, “Not that’s any of your concern, anyway,” she continues as she catches sight of Evie making her way towards them, “because you’re not the boss of me, so.”

“You took an _oath_.” Audrey insisted, her eyes deadly. Mal rolls her eyes.

“An oath that cost you two girls already. _Today_ .” Mal fought back, looking at Audrey like she’d lost it completely, “I’m pretty sure you need _me_ more than I need _you_.”

Audrey doesn’t have a response to that, but she’s not blinking and she’s breathing pretty fast, and then Evie’s moving towards Audrey and rubbing her arm again, and Mal’s had enough for the day.

She heads to the door, and then Audrey calls after her.

“I can see your toner through those jeans!”

Mal turns around and keeps backing away as she faces Audrey and Evie’s confused stare, “That’s my strap-on.”

Audrey looks taken aback by her answer, and Evie fights back her laugh, knowing that it would not help at all if she showed amusement towards the girl’s words. Mal shoots her a wink and then turns back around, exiting the room.

That means she misses Evie blatantly checking her out and Audrey’s annoyed glare when she catches her best friend ogling the blonde.

-

On the day of the Fall Mixer thing, it all goes to shit.

Honestly, Mal should’ve known this was going to end badly the moment she found Uma using her yellow scarf as a napkin while she stuffed her face with whatever they were serving at the buffet and Audrey kept glaring at Mal’s ear, the ‘ear monstrosities’, as she so called the girl’s piercings, still very much in place.

Everything seemed off, Evie looked like she had her mind somewhere else (not that Mal was paying too much attention or was like, in tune with the girl’s emotions or anything), and they’d all been pretty exhausted from the first week of rehearsals. 

Also, basically no one knew ‘Turn The Beat Around’ as deeply as Audrey and Evie knew, so that definitely played a big part in the big disaster that was their performance.

The SBT president, Howie, had frowned throughout the entire performance and then had escorted them out moments later after stopping their disastrous harmonization, and had told Audrey that he would not be paying for that and that he had expected her to deliver something better, something from the ‘Hot Bellas’.

Mal thinks he’s a douche and she’s over it already, but Audrey is fuming and everyone else is frowning, and Evie looks distant and like she would cry at any moment, so she figures she should try and care a little bit about their failed performance.

(In the end, she just stays quiet and hears Audrey tell them that they need to remember how they feel now so they never want to feel that way again.)

Then, a thought strikes Mal and she asks, curiously, “How are we going to pay for Regionals?” 

Audrey stops, as if Mal had just reminded her of that, and she glances around the group and frowns. “I guess a bikini car wash is out of the question?” Mal immediately agrees on that, because she’s absolutely not doing any of that.

“I would gladly give up my body for a good cause.” Uma states, and Mal snickers.

Audrey mutters to herself, looking deep in thought, and then she brightens up, “Maybe we could start a singing telegram? What do you think, Evie?”

The girls all look at Evie, who’s staring off into space, her eyes welling up with tears as she fights them off.

“Evie! For real! What’s going on with you?” Audrey asks, worried, and they watch as the brown haired girl breaks.

“I have nodes!” She exclaims, letting her tears fall, and Audrey gasps. 

“What? Oh my God!” Audrey exclaims, putting her arms around Evie in comfort. 

Evie nods, “I just found out this morning.”

The girls stare at them, confused, and then Mal asks.

“What are nodes?” Because she doesn’t know, and she thinks she’s not the only one in the group to not have any clue of what that might be, but it must be pretty serious for Evie to be in tears and Audrey to feel sympathy for another human being.

“Vocal nodules. The rubbing together of your vocal cords above-average rates without proper lubrication.” Audrey explains, looking close to tears herself, and the girls nod. Mal frowns.

“They sit on your windpipe and crush your dreams.” Evie states in a hushed tone, and Mal feels her heart hurt for the girl. She doesn’t like this version of Evie - the sad, quiet one.

“Isn’t that painful?” Mal frowns, “Why would you keep performing?”

“Because I love to sing!” Evie says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Audrey runs her hands up and down Evie’s back in a comforting motion, and Mal wants to like, argue, but decides to step down when Lonnie speaks up about not hearing her gynecologist and having sex when she wasn’t supposed to, making Uma tell her that she should probably start listening to her doctors. 

Mal can’t take her eyes from Evie, and when the girl starts talking about being a survivor and limited and about how the key is early diagnosis, Mal doesn’t even want to like, laugh at her dramatic antics. And then, Uma speaks up.

“Well, at least it’s not herpes,” She says, her voice sympathetic. Audrey glances at her, shock registering on her face, and then Uma adds, “Or do you have that as well?”

Evie cries harder.

-

Things after that day start calming down, but Mal is still pretty worried about Evie. So worried, she googles everything there is to know about nodes, making sure she knows what to expect and what’s normal and what isn’t – until she catches herself and realizes that maybe the person who should be doing this is Audrey and she wonders if the girl’s done it for her friend, and if she might need some of the information that Mal has learned. 

She probably did, being such a control freak like she is, but Mal still prints it out and packs in her bag to sneak into the girl's bag later, just in case.

The blonde also realizes that she might not be able to write this – the research, the concern, the absolute crushing feeling once she learned that Evie might not be able to sing ever again – off as some casual curiosity or just friendly concern, because Evie and Mal aren’t really all that close, having known each other for a little over two weeks.

So Mal just kinda accepts that maybe she has a crush on the brunette, but like. They did shower together and it was kind of impossible not to like, catch feelings for Evie, so she’s not even mad. Not really.

And like, the Bellas are kinda fun. Mal finds herself actually enjoying herself through rehearsals, and once or twice she hangs out with the other girls outside of the rehearsing room. She goes to class, now, and her mom even looks pleased with her. 

Even work is fun, now that she’s kind of friends with Ben. She considers him a colleague, at most, because Mal’s never really had any close friends or anything like that, but Ben seems to consider Mal his best friend, or something like that. He talks a lot, and Mal mostly listens and hums and makes a few small comments, and the boy just shakes his head and chuckles when she gives him a few dry responses when he tries to get to know her for real. 

Things are looking up, really, even though rehearsals are getting even more gruesome as the regionals approach, and that psychotic glint in Audrey‘s eyes get worse every passing day.

A few weeks later from the disastrous performance, Mal is sitting on the grass, working on her laptop, and doesn’t notice it when Ben walks up carrying a duffle bag. He takes a bath towel out of it, laying it down on the ground, and then he sits down and makes himself at home. Mal watches as he pulls out two juice boxes out of his bag, handing her one wordlessly.

“What’s this?” She asks curiously as he begins to pull out a stack of DVD’s from his bag as well.

“As much as I love spending time with you stacking CD’s in a dusty and dark room, I figured we could take this incredible bond we’ve created to a next level and do something that doesn’t make us want to kill ourselves, so, I brought some movies.” He explains, showing her the last DVD case he grabbed. “ _Jaws, E.T., The Breakfast Club, Star Wars_ and _Rocky_ . Best scored-soundtrack movies of all time.” 

Mal blinks.

“This is what I want to do when I grow up. Score movies. Bring people to tears, blow people’s minds. I feel like only music can do that.” He says, as he grabs his own juice box and looks at Mal with a small smile. The girl raises an eyebrow, and nods slowly as she takes a sip of her own juice.

“Wow, you must really sweep your girlfriend off her feet.” She says, teasingly, and Ben pauses, giving her a weird look. “What?”

“Not, um, a girlfriend.” He fumbles with his words, avoiding Mal’s eyes, “Well, could be, but like. I’m not dating anyone,” He rambles, and when Mal thinks he’s done, he adds after clearing his throat nervously, “But if I were, um. Not a girl.”

There’s a pause, and then Mal’s frowning, confused, “Wait, are you coming out?”

Ben lets out a breathy laugh, but nods, a little flushed. It’s the first time Mal’s seen him like that, and she can’t help but think he looks adorable, “I’m bi. But that’s not the case. I meant… I’m not trying to sweep any girl off her feet, so you can give up.” He winks, and Mal chuckles.

“So… who’s the lucky boy?” She asks, and he shakes his head.

“That’s none of your concern,” He deflects, and then, a little hushed, “It’s not happening, anyway.”

“But you have juice boxes and Rocky!” Mal says, mock aghast. Ben chuckles and bumps his shoulder against hers.

“Okay. Fair enough.” He allows, and then he holds up some of the cases, “Which one do you wanna watch first?”

Mal studies the DVDs for a moment and then furrows her brow, biting her lower lip.

“Do you wanna do something else?” She asks, instead, and then she gives him that teasing smile that he’s so used to now, “We could relive my parents’ divorce. Or go to the gynecologist together.”

Ben gives her a weird look, “What, do you not like movies or something?” 

Mal sips the juice box, not answering, and laughs when he looks affronted.

“Any movies?”

Mal only blinks.

“What the hell is wrong with you? How do you not like movies? Not liking movies is like not liking… _puppies_ !” 

“I mean, they’re fine,” Mal tries to excuse herself, amused at Ben’s outburst, “I just get bored and never make it to the end.”

This only hurts Ben more, apparently, because he looks at Mal like she just confessed to stabbing his whole family, “But the endings are the best part!”

“They’re predictable,” Mal shrugs, and when Ben gives her a look, she elaborates, “I mean the guy gets the girl, and the kid sees dead people, Darth Vader is Luke’s father…” She trails off, and Ben immediately scoffs.

“Oh, right, so you just happened to guess one of the biggest reveals in cinematic history.” 

Mal almost doesn’t want to crush his dreams, but then, “Vader in German means father. His name is literally Darth Father.”

Ben looks at her like she literally slapped him across the face, and they sit in silence for a while before Ben speaks up, his voice defeated.

“That’s why you don’t like fun things. You know German and likes to crush my spirit.” He says, putting his movies back in his duffle, and Mal is about to rebut when he continues, “You need a movie education.” He nods to himself and when Mal looks like she wants to protest, he continues, “You need an aca-movie-cation, and I’m gonna give it to you.”

Mal nods, mock seriously, “Yeah, just try to work around my very busy, very Bellas rehearsal filled schedule.”

Ben gives her an excited smile, and that’s usually a bad sign. “You guys getting ready for the riff-off?”

A beat.

“What the _fuck_ is a riff-off?”  
\- 

The Riff-Off ends up being a (not so) friendly competition between the four acapella groups. And like, it’s actually pretty fun, the complete opposite of every single Bellas rehearsal that they’ve had so far. There are some people from outside the four groups around, watching on as the groups battle through songs, and like.

Everyone seems to be having a fun time, and there’s that rush of competitiveness in the air that starts when Chad and his friends from the Treblemakers kick it off with their own rendition of _Mickey_ . Mal stands in the back of the Bellas, watching on in complete amazement as the groups interrupt each other with their own rendition of songs from each category, and Mal is full on trying to stop her laugh from bursting out of her lips once Ben interrupts Lonnie’s version of _I’ll Make Love to You_ to sing _It Feels Like The First Time_.

He’s being playful, and he keeps sending glances towards Mal, as if daring her to interrupt him, that she eventually gives in and runs forward, starting her very own version of the rap from _No Diggity_. Ben smiles at her, completely awestruck, and when she feels like an idiot and awkward and looks back towards the group, where the girls are all watching her with shocked expressions on their faces and Uma is giving her that excited and bright Uma smile, Audrey looks absolutely shocked and Evie has this intense look in her eyes and Mal begs with her own green ones for them to back her up so they won’t lose.

They eventually do, and they sound fucking _incredible,_ and Mal’s literally never felt such a rush before. Ben is watching her with a wide smile, as if he’s proud of her for taking up his challenge.

And then, they lose because of a stupid technicality that apparently has never taken place before, the boy saying that Mal started with ‘it’s’ when it was supposed to be an ‘it’, and Audrey argues against it, calling it up as favoritism, but there’s no point.

The Riff-Off was still one of the most fun things Mal’s done, and that gets her through Audrey’s long speech about how much they suck. Mal’s still pretty hyped, though, because she asks, excited, once Audrey finishes up her mini-stroke. “Guys, what we just did was great, right?”

She looks around the group, and all the girls look at her with smiles on their faces, ready to agree with her when Audrey snaps (again), before anyone else could agree out loud, “Calm your pits, Mal. We still lost.”

“Yeah, but it was spontaneous. It was awesome. We were actually listening-“

“Okay, hands in, everybody! _Ahh_ , on my count.” Audrey interrupts, holding her fist out, and Mal rolls her eyes. Mal doesn’t hold her fist out in her own version of rebellion, and Lonnie pauses before holding her own fist out.

“ _On_ three or _after_ three?” She asks.

“On three.” Uma answers, but then Jane shakes her head and mutters ‘after’, making them all look around each other confusedly. Evie glances at Audrey with furrowed eyebrows, mouthing an ‘after?’, and Mal smiles to herself as she catches that.

“No, it’s one, two, _ahh._ ” Uma says, shaking her head.

Audrey rolls her eyes once the girls start arguing, and then she snaps, “That’s not how we do it.”

Lonnie pinches the bridge of her nose and wonders out loud, “ _Why_ can’t we figure this out?”

Audrey just huffs and pulls her arm back, and the girls follow her steps. “Just forget it. Let’s just go, there’s an early rehearsal tomorrow. Before you go to bed tonight, I need you to do a list of everything you think you did wrong.” She says, and then turns around and leaves, and the girls all glance at each other before following the girl out.

Mal stays behind, and so does Evie, after the brunette notices the blonde isn’t making a move to leave.

“It was awesome.” Evie says in form of a greeting, and Mal looks at her in confusion before Evie elaborates, a small smile on her face, “You asked about what we did. It was awesome. We’ve never had this much fun at Riff-Offs before.” Evie confides, and Mal raises an eyebrow.

“Why does that not surprise me?” She teases, and chuckles when Evie bumps her side with her own. “You wanna grab something to eat?” She asks, because she just realized she was starving, no ulterior motives or anything. Nothing related to her crush, or anything ridiculous like that.

Evie nods excitedly and loops their arms together, and they start making their way towards a burger place near campus. They’re halfway there when Evie starts chuckling, and Mal looks at her curiously, a smile of her own making its way to her face.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” Evie shakes her head, still chuckling to herself, “Just… did you notice that this is like, the first time we hang out without me barging into your shower or putting a hood over your head?”

Mal grins back at her, letting out one of her own laughs before she states, “You look different with clothes on.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Evie asks, squinting at Mal, and like. Mal’s not about to tell her that she thinks Evie looks better with no clothes on or anything like that, so the girl just shakes her head.

“Nothing. Just that you’re pretty, is all.” She flirts, or at least tries to, and Evie beams.

“You think I’m pretty?” She asks, and Mal rolls her eyes, muttering a ‘duh’ under her breath, and Evie smiles even wider at that. “I think you’re pretty too. You have like, these ridiculous eyes and your hair looks so soft and it looks so cool- sorry.” Evie stops herself, flushing red and looking down at the ground, giving Mal an embarrassed smile. Mal is full on blushing as well, but she feels warm all over, “I’m rambling.”

“No, it’s okay. By all means, continue.” Mal says, giving Evie a cheesy grin. The girl only rolls her eyes, but the smile doesn’t leave her face. They talk a little more about the Riff-Off then, Mal asking her about the past year and about how things came to be, the whole Audrey stress vomiting thing and where the fuck did Chad even come from, because there’s no way that guy came out of something other than a spaceship in the middle of a cornfield, and all that.

They get to the burger place and settle in before giving their orders, and Mal can’t help but feel like this is a date, even though she knows it’s not. Nothing about it screams ‘date’, but Mal’s always been a bit of a dreamer. Evie is filled with fun stories and questions, and before they know it they’ve eaten and they’re just sitting there, Evie finishing up a story about how she and Audrey met and Mal thinks Evie is the most interesting human being in the world, with her passionate eyes and beautiful voice, but she doesn’t tell her that.

It’s all going well until Evie brings Ben up, and it’s like. Mal doesn’t know where that came from, so she’s confused and tells Evie that Ben’s just a friend, that they work at the radio station together and they have fun, and Evie has this weird look on her face and Mal thinks that maybe Evie also takes the no-dating-Trebles oath seriously. Which, cool, but she happens to like Ben, and she doesn’t want to like, have to stop being his friend because of the Bellas, so she might sound a little defensive when she tells her they’re just friends.

So then things get a little weird, and then Evie cuts their night short, and Mal is a little bummed but figures that they could use some early sleep, considering tomorrow they have a long day of rehearsals.

They part ways, and Evie has this weird look on her face as she walks away and Mal can’t help but feel like she’s missing something.

-

“So, I find songs that have the same chord progressions and then I create a track that blends them all together.” Mal says (yells) through the music playing on her headphones, and points at her computer screen, “This is the new baseline, this matches the downbeats,” then, she pauses, giving Ben a sheepish smile as she removes her headphones, “and I’m talking really loud, aren’t I?”

Ben nods, the same smile on his face, and Mal gives him an embarrassed smile, “And that’s me singing.”

Ben looks at the computer then, pretty interested, and holds his hand out for the girl’s headphones. Mal hands it to him, and she watches nervously as he puts them on and immediately beams at her, his head bopping to the music.

“This is _really_ good!” He all but yells, and Mal winces at the sudden noise. He notices it and chuckles, “Now I’m the loud one, right?” Mal smiles, and he bops a little more to the beat before he removes the headphones and looks at Mal with a small smile. “That is amazing, Mal.”

Mal only shrugs, setting the headphones aside and gives him a small ‘thanks’. Ben shakes his head and looks to his right, at the duffle bag he brought and set on the floor by Mal’s bed and tells her that he brought a movie for them to watch and that he wants to watch her reaction to the ending scene.

Mal decides that she could try, but halfway through _The Breakfast Club_ she’s very much bored. Ben seems to notice this, then, and he just rolls his eyes before giving in and skipping to the final part, and Mal smiles at him. He only sighs in response.

“This song launched Simple Minds in the U.S,” He says after a moment, his eyes glued to the screen, “It could’ve been a Billy Idol song but he turned it down, like an idiot. This song perfectly sums up the entire movie – it’s beautiful and sad. Also, it’s _the_ most romantic song ever created, in my correct opinion.”

Mal fights her smile, “That is fascinating.”

Ben doesn’t seem to register her tone, because he just nods, an excited, “Right?” coming out of his mouth as he focuses on the movie.

“Tell me, what does Judd Nelson like to eat for breakfast?” Mal asks, eyes glued on the screen as well as she waits for the answer. Ben doesn’t miss a beat.

“Like all misunderstood rebels, he feeds off hypocrisy…” Ben starts, Mal nods, agreeing, and Ben continues, “And black coffee. It helps with his morning dumps.”

Mal laughs, amused, and shakes her head, still not looking away from the screen, “You’re an idiot.”

“It’s true. I’m full of fun facts.” He says seriously.

“You should tell them to your mystery crush.” Mal comments, and Ben pointedly ignores her as he focuses on the screen. She chuckles.

On the screen, Judd Nelson raises his fist and Ben is so into it that he can’t help himself but do a small version of it, as well, and Mal looks at him amusedly when she notices it.

“You’re such a dork.”

Ben shrugs, then, “You’re missing the ending.’”

Mal sighs but looks back at the screen, and they stay in silence until the credits are rolling.

“So, what did you think?” Ben asks, excitedly, and Mal shrugs in response, not really having an answer for him. Ben rolls his eyes and groans, “You’re so annoying, this is the greatest ending of all time. You don’t know how many times I’ve dreamed of doing the Judd Nelson fist thing.”

“I’m sure a lot, as of recently.” Mal comments, and Ben gives her a look but doesn’t deny it.

Mal stares at him until he sighs in defeat, “Okay, damn. I’ll tell you who it is,” He pauses, as if trying to psych himself up, and when Mal thinks he’s given up on saying, he hushes out, “It’s Harry, a boy from Trebles.”

Mal knows who Harry is, but she didn’t know he was a Treble. She knows who he is, because he was the boy with the jawline that Evie had been dancing with at Hood Night, and then the boy who she’d seen hanging around with Evie on campus on a few occasions (not that she was stalking them, or anything), but she had no idea the boy was a Treble.

She frowns.

If Evie had no problem with being friends with a Treble, then why…

Ben seems to catch her confusion then, because he gives her a curious frown of his own and Mal shakes her head, “It’s nothing, uh… I know Harry, he’s cute.”

Ben nods, not looking convinced, and Mal sighs. “I just – uh, he and Evie seem close.”

The boy in front of her gives an amused look, as if Mal just told him the funniest joke ever, and says, “Mal, Harry’s gay,” as if that was the most obvious thing in the world, and like.

“I don’t care? I didn’t mean it like that,” She shakes her head, “No, Evie just got all weird about you and I being friends, but if she’s friends with a Treble-“

“What’s wrong with that?” He asks, genuinely offended, and Mal shakes her head, ignoring him.

“Long story, something about wolves, don’t worry about it.”

This obviously serves to confuse the boy even further, but before he could question her about it, the door of the room is opening and Jordan is walking in, followed by a few of her friends, all of them holding take-out bags in their arms.

Jordan looks pointedly at Ben, and he seems to get the clue. He quickly leaves the bed, grabbing his duffle bag and throwing it over his shoulder. “Bye, Mal.” He says, giving Mal a look that told her that she was not off the hook, and then he turns to Jordan, “Always a pleasure, Jordan.”

Jordan rolls her eyes at him and they all watch as he leaves.

It takes a moment for Mal to realize he’s forgotten his DVD, her head still swirling with thoughts of Evie.

-

The next day, during rehearsals, they’re going through the choreography for Turn The Beat Around, and something about it sounds off, other than the fact that the song is absolutely terrible and the choreography is tired. No, Evie seems to be struggling with her solo, turning her final high note into a low one at the last second, and Mal knows because of her research that her nodes must be killing her.

She looks in pain, actually, and Mal watches her with concerned eyes as everyone stands in place once the song is done, and then Uma is panting and saying she should’ve taken the cardio seriously, and Audrey is asking her how much she’s actually done and Uma tells her she just saw it. Mal doesn’t look away from Evie, who’s rubbing her throat and frowning, and she wants to like, go up to her and comfort her, but she doesn’t want to draw attention to herself.

It backfires, though, because Audrey tells Evie she has to be able to hit that last note, and then Evie is shaking her head and telling her she can’t, _because of her nodes,_ they all chorus, and then Audrey is telling her that if she can’t, then someone else needs to solo instead of her. Mal thinks Evie will disagree, but instead, Evie nods, agreeing with Audrey and then she’s doing the unexpected and saying that _Mal_ should be the one to solo.

Audrey looks at Evie like the girl had just personally attacked her, and before anything can be said, Uma speaks up.

“Yeah, Mal would be excellent,” She starts, “But also… someone else might be equally as excellent…”

Mal nods, getting where this was going, “It’s true.”

“…and they might be shy, and might not want to come forward and say they want to solo.” Uma finishes, giving Audrey a pointed look. The brunette looks almost amused, and Mal thinks that Uma might be growing on their leader. Granted, it’s hard not to like Uma.

Everyone else is chuckling amusedly at the girl, and Audrey shrugs, “Well, Mal doesn’t wanna solo, so…”

Okay, but when did Mal say she doesn’t want to? She doesn’t, but like. Audrey clearly doesn’t want her to solo either, and that’s what makes Mal say what she does next.

“I would be happy to do it, if I got to pick a new song and do a new arrangement.”

It’s a direct challenge and a not so subtle criticism, and Audrey catches it. She narrows her eyes at the blonde girl, and the girls shift, uneasy.

“That’s not how we do things here.” Audrey states, simply, as if she’d said this so many times before that it’s become a mantra of sorts.

And Mal’s about to give up and let it go, because they’ve been through this, but then something unexpected happens and Evie speaks up again.

“Audrey, maybe Mal has a point.” She says, her tone easy and light, as if someone who doesn’t want anything and isn’t looking for trouble, even though they’re walking straight into the lion’s den, “Maybe we should try something new.”

“Aca-scuse me?” Audrey snaps, looking at Evie as if she’d lost her mind. Evie and Audrey seem to be in the middle of a silent argument, staring deep into each other’s eyes, and Mal can’t help but feel uneasy as Audrey glances away from Evie to her, her eyes stern. “You can sing Turn The Beat Around, and that’s the last that I want to hear of this.”

Mal chances a look at Evie, and the girl is looking at Audrey with her eyebrows furrowed. Mal wonders who’d lost the silent argument, and what they were arguing about.

“That song is tired,” Mal insists, “We’re not gonna win with it. If we pulled samples from different genres and layered them together, we could-“

“Okay, let me explain something to you because you still seem to not understand.” Audrey interrupts, and Mal takes a step back when the girl walks towards her, the maniac look back in her eyes, “Our goal is to get back to the finals. These songs will get us there. So excuse me if I don’t take advice from some alt girl with her Mad Lib beats when she’s never even been in a competition. Have I made myself clear?”

Mal gives her a sardonic smile, and nods, “Crystal. I won’t solo.” She says, backing out literally and figuratively.

She misses the upset look that crosses Evie’s face at that.

She walks back towards the other girls, and Uma rubs her back sympathetically.

“Uma?” Audrey calls, and Uma immediately snaps her head towards the girl.

“Yes, sir?”

“You’ll solo.”

Uma fist bumps, then claps once, drawing out a “yes!” in celebration as the girls watch with their own smiles on their faces. When she draws the big heart in her shirt with her hands, a bright smile on her face, Mal can’t help but feel like she’s made the right decision.

-

Ben keeps trying to guess what Mal’s problem with Harry and Evie being close is. Mal usually ignores him, pretending to be focused on her stacking of CDs, but the way he keeps trying to make sure that they’re not crushing on the same guy – and that Mal isn’t crushing on a gay dude – is kind of funny, so Mal lets him think that for like, three days, until Ben realizes Mal’s just messing with him and moves on from that one particular guess.

He starts questioning her about where she stands with Evie, and what the deal was with Bellas being friends with Trebles, and what was up with the wolves part that Mal mentioned.

Mal ignores him for the most part, but sometimes she tries to deflect by changing the subject and distracting Ben with movie talk. It never works, though, because Ben isn’t an idiot, as much as Mal tells him otherwise.

The realization comes on a Thursday morning, the day before the regionals, and Ben asks her if she has a crush on Evie. Mal takes too long to deny it, and Ben takes it as confirmation. He looks pretty excited to have cracked the code, even more excited when he asks Mal if she’s a “fellow bi bro”, and only smiles wider when Mal rolls her eyes at him before she nods, deciding that it wouldn’t hurt to at least give him this one.

“This is awesome.” He states, stacking the CDs with a lot more energy than she’s ever seen before, and she shakes her head, chuckling amusedly at him.

“You’re such a dork.” She says, but her tone is affectionate. Ben grins, and then their moment is broken when the door to the booth opens, and Zevon walks out of it. Mal fishes out the pen drive from her back pocket and walks towards him, and the boy looks at her curiously as she hands it to him.

“This is my latest mix, maybe you’ll play this one?” She says as he takes it, and he looks down at the pen drive before nodding, giving Mal a friendly smile.

“Sure, no problem.” He says, and puts it with the others on his table.

Mal turns around and walks back towards Ben, who waits until Zevon leaves the room to ask, “How many of your mixes has he played?”

Mal gives him a look, and Ben shakes his head, stacking another CD, “Ass.”

Mal doesn’t disagree.

-

Uma crushes her solo, and they get through to semifinals. Mal would even go as far to say that Uma made Turn The Beat Around sound not so tired, and that’s a lot.

Everyone’s happy, even though they won second place and not first. The champions of the night are the Treblemakers, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference.

Everything goes to shit when they’re leaving, though, because that’s how life works.

Chad and the boys from the Trebles, specifically a boy with long hair and brown skin, Jay, and the boy with the jawline, Harry, seem to have picked a fight with another acapella group formed by men in their 40s, and the next thing Mal knows she’s watching as Ben tries to stop the fight, only to be ignored as one of the guys tells Ben to punch him.

Then, a fight breaks out between the guys – could it even be called a fight? It looked like a hot mess, but there was a lot of yelling and movements involved and Chad seemed to have fled the scene, so.

Uma, by Mal’s side, looks like she’s trying her hardest not to jump in the action. She turns to Audrey and Evie and says, completely serious, “If I get in there, there’s going to be dork parts caught in the storm drains of these streets for months.”

Evie gives her a look and puts a hand on her shoulder, as if silently telling her that she would not go anywhere.

And then, they see as one of the guys begs Ben to hit him with the trophy, saying he needs to feel something, and Ben looks absolutely lost, and Mal takes pity on him. The girls watch as Mal tells them she’ll check on him, and then Uma is nodding excitedly and saying something about a Kraken being unleashed and Evie is face palming and muttering an “oh, my God,” and Audrey looks like she’s actually enjoying herself.

The old dude and Ben are fighting for the trophy, and Mal approaches them and hits the dude on his back, and he turns around just in time for Mal to punch him on the face. And she has to admit, she loved doing that.

Ben looks at her with wide eyes, as if she’s lost it, and maybe she did, because she’s actually joining an acapella fist fight or something as ridiculous, and this entire situation _feels_ like a fever dream.

The dude looks like he’s actually enjoyed that, and then Uma is grabbing the trophy from Ben, and then he’s asking Uma to kick him in the private parts, and literally what the fuck is going on tonight. Uma yells something about shoving the trophy up his ass, and she’s about to go for it (and the guy to actually let her) when Mal lunges to her, and they push and pull on the trophy, until a jerk movement happens and a piece of the trophy breaks and the rest of it is flying towards a glass door, completely smashing it, and everyone looks on, stunned.

Right outside, a police officer that had been ticketing a van outside looks up at the noise, and he catches Mal red-handed, a piece of the broken trophy in her hand. Everyone starts to run from the scene, including Uma. Mal calls after her, but all she hears is the girl’s shouts about vertical running.

She meets Ben’s eyes, and he looks as panicked as Mal feels.

Well.

_Fuck_.

-

She’s relieved when she finally gets to leave the police station after being told she’s been bailed out, and she smiles in relief when she walks out and meets Ben waiting for her, his hands in his pockets. He smiles back at her, and makes a corny joke about Million Dollar Baby that Mal shoots down, making him pout and say prison’s changed her, and this is easy. This is good.

Until it’s not, because she thanks him for bailing her out, and he gives her this look and tells him that he didn’t, and right on cue Mal’s eyes meet her mother’s, the older woman giving her a stern look as she stands by her car.

Mal does a 180 and yells at Ben for calling her mom, and the boy looks guilty but defends himself, saying he didn’t know what else to do. Mal can kinda understand his side, but still. She’s pretty fucking tired, and pissed off, and her mom’s looking at her like she’s disappointed in her, and that’s just the fucking worst.

So Ben gets defensive as well, and yells at her about how he’s the only one there, and that fucking stings, because she knows what he’s implying, and she’s never expected that from him. He seems to understand what he’s done wrong, though, because he immediately softens his expression and mutters a sorry, and Mal knows she’s forgiven him and that he didn’t mean that, but still.

She wants to hurt him back, so she says that she doesn’t know why he’s there because he’s just her work colleague, nothing more, and they both know that’s not true, but it still makes Ben step down and look at her like she’s just punched him in the throat.

And then, Mal’s making her way towards her mom, and her mom’s yelling at her and ranting about how disappointed she is, and how she doesn’t want to hear anything from Mal, and then she says that Mal can forget about their deal, and it’s all _so much_ –

Mal tries her hardest not to let herself cry in front of them.

-

The girls are in her room waiting for her when she opens the door, and they all smile and cheer when she sees them. Even Audrey looks happy to see her, sitting at her computer chair as the other girls take the floor and Mal’s bed.

“What’s up, Mal!” Uma greets her, a wide smile on her face, “Did they spray you with a hose? Did you get yourself a bitch?” She winks, and Mal rolls her eyes at the girl.

Mal thinks she hears Jane mutter something about doing a turn a county, but she’s so touched by seeing her friends waiting for her that she ignores that. Her eyes find Evie’s, and the girl seems to be the happiest out of all the girls to see that Mal’s okay.

Physically okay, that is. Emotionally, she would have to check again later.

“You guys waited up for me?” She asks, trying to mask the emotion from her voice, but she fails. Evie nods, giving her that special smile she tends to only give her.

“Of course we waited up for you.”

Jordan stands from her bed, glaring, and says they’ve been there for hours and were a real inconvenience, but Mal can sense a little bit of something else in her tone of voice as well, and she wonders if Jordan had been concerned.

Before she could say anything, the girl leaves, and Mal has a small smile on her face at the turn of events. Evie winks at her, seemingly reading the girl’s thoughts.

“Mal,” Audrey calls, and Mal turns to her, eyebrows raised, Audrey swallows, but gives the blonde a small smile, “I’m glad you’re here,” She states, and Mal feels like she’s just walked into the twilight zone, until Audrey continues, “I’m calling an emergency Bella meeting.”

Mal fights the eye roll, but chuckles when she hears Uma groaning. Audrey ignores her.

“First up, our score sheet revealed that The Sockappellas almost beat us. We need to bust our asses if we’re going to make it to the Finals,” She states, frowning, and the girls nod, “Uma? You need to do exactly how we rehearsed it, okay? No surprises, and that includes no death drops ever again, okay?” Uma sighs, but nods, and Mal rolls her eyes.

“We should be taking risks, it’s not enough to be good.” She states, and when the girls look at her, she continues, “We need put ourselves out there and be different.”

Audrey purses her lips, and before she can say anything, Lonnie is nodding, “Mal is right. The Trebles never sing the same song twice.”

Mal nods in agreement and adds to the argument, “The audience loves the Trebles. They tolerate us. We could change the face of acapell-“ Mal stops herself mid-sentence, eyes wide, “Jesus Christ, what the fuck is happening to me?”

She thinks she catches Jane laughing at that and Uma nodding at her, but she’s not sure. She walks towards her computer desk, turning on her screen, “Let me show you this arrangement I’ve been working on.”

She pulls up her program on screen, and she doesn’t notice that Evie’s standing behind her until the girl says, “I didn’t know you were into this stuff,” and her voice sounds intrigued and pleasantly surprised.

Mal offers her a grin before she turns towards her keyboard, and she’s about to start playing when Audrey stops her.

“Okay, I have the pitch pipe, and I say we focus on the set list as planned.” Mal rolls her eyes in response and Evie sighs, Audrey ignores them as she continues, “From now on, no more wasting time with work, or school, or boyfriends-“ She pauses, shooting a look towards Uma and then at Evie, ever so subtly, “or partners, I’m sorry.”

Uma looks genuinely confused by that, and Mal has to stop herself from outright laughing. Before anything can be said to that, Evie speaks up.

“But, Audrey, this sounds pretty cool,” she motions to Mal’s equipment. Mal looks from Evie to Audrey, who looks damn near an aneurism, “Maybe we could-“

“Okay! Rehearsal tomorrow!” Audrey interrupts, “8AM sharp.”

Evie crosses her arms and shakes her head as she watches her best friend leave the room. She glances at Mal and shrugs, mouthing a ‘sorry’ before she follows the other girl out.

-

Uma gets attacked at a gas station on the way to semifinals.

Well, Chad and his dumbass friends (Ben was still on trial, as they were not really on speaking terms, so) thought it’d be hilarious if they threw Mexican food out their window towards Uma as the girl pumped gas in their small bus, and now Mal was sitting behind Uma as the girl drove the vehicle, glaring at the road ahead of them.

Mal notices a little spot just under the girl’s right ear, and she leans forward to wipe it off for the girl.

“You got a little somethin’ there,” She says.

Uma shakes her head, “Just leave it, it fuels my hate fire.”

Mal laughs at that but backs off, sitting back on her seat. The bus is silent as the girls do their own thing, the only sound coming from Evie as she hums along to the song she’s hearing through her earphones, until she starts singing along to _Party In The USA_ , and all the girls look at her, different expressions on their faces.

Immediately from the driver’s seat, Uma starts singing along with her and Evie smiles at the back of the girl’s head, and then the rest of the girls join in with their own harmonies, except for Mal.

They’re full on jamming now, and Mal’s trying her hardest not to laugh, her arms crossed over her chest as she tries to school her expression, and that seems to catch Audrey and Evie’s attention, because they start leaning towards Mal as they get to the pre-chorus, Lonnie joining in as she leans dangerously close to the blonde, until Mal looks around and notices that they’re all looking at her expectantly, smiles on their faces.

There’s a pause, and then.

Mal rolls her eyes and joins in, and she thinks that this is one of those moments that her mom had been talking about. They’re all screaming the lyrics together and it doesn’t sound all that great, but they’re having fun and Mal hasn’t felt like this in a long time.

And then, the bus starts to make weird noises, and the girls stop the singing as Uma trails off with the song as she checks the fuel gauge, “It’s uh- it’s… it’s… oh no.”

“What the hell?” Audrey asks, a frown making its way on her face, and Uma gulps.

“Um, pretty cool, actually. I think we’re running out of gas.” Uma says nervously, and Mal leans forward to check it for herself.

“But that can’t be! You just filled the tank.” Audrey protests, and everyone else watches in panic as the bus starts slowing down.

“Yeah, I did!” Uma agrees, smiling nervously, “And yet… maybe I didn’t, because I got hit by a bunch of Mexican food.” She winces.

Mal glances nervously at Audrey, who looks like she’s on the brink of a heart attack, and Audrey glances back at her in panic as the bus comes to a complete stop.

“And we’re out.” Uma says, dropping her hands from the wheel.

“Aca-scuse me?” Audrey asks, almost on the verge of tears, and Mal almost feels bad.

“Aca-believe it.” Uma says back, and then, “Man, what are we gonna do?”

The girls look around each other, then, trying to figure it out, until Evie starts, her voice low, “Maybe we could call…”

Audrey raises her hand, “No, Evie. Don’t even think about it, how dare you?!” Then, she glares when Evie only gives her a look that tells her to be reasonable, “I’m _not_ calling Chad.”

That makes Evie pause. “Chad? I was gonna say I could call Harry.” Audrey visibly blanks at this, and Evie presses on, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “Why do you have Chad’s number?”

The girls look from Evie to Audrey, and Mal and Uma meet shocked eyes as Audrey tries to come up with an answer, and Mal can’t stop the silent laugh that comes out of her when the realization hits.

Audrey ignores them as they fall into a giggling fit.

-

The Treble boys agree to pick them up, Audrey calling up the company where they got the bus from and informs them of the occurrence as soon as they get into the boys’ bus, and Mal can see that Audrey is making a point of ignoring the girls’ teasing looks as she takes a seat next to Chad at the back of the bus, meanwhile Mal sits in between Evie and Uma, the latter trying to chat Lonnie up as they sit close to each other.

They’re on one side of the bus while the boys are on the other, and Mal’s trying her hardest to avoid Ben’s puppy dog eyes, and she tries not to send him a knowing look when she realizes that he’s sitting beside Harry.

It’s an uncomfortable ride, and they can hear their two leaders bicker quietly with each other throughout the ride. Mal tries to eavesdrop, extremely curious as to what the two of them could be arguing about, but suddenly Evie is turning to her, asking if she’s excited about semifinals, and Mal makes a face.

“Not particularly, no.” She drops her voice, because she’s convinced that Audrey isn’t like, human, and she wouldn’t be surprised if the girl had like, super hearing or something like that, and like, Mal’s not particularly in the mood to fight in front of the Treblemakers. “You know we’re not gonna win with this routine, we’ll be lucky if we make it to second, but I honestly don’t see it happening.” She confesses, and Evie gives her a sad smile, and Mal knows she agrees with her.

“I tried talking to Audrey, but there’s no getting through with her.” Evie admits, her voice a whisper so the other girl won’t hear her, and Evie settles back in her seat and studies Mal for a second. The blonde thinks she looks cute with the outfit they’re all wearing (for the hundredth time since the beginning of the Bellas, probably). “So, uh, what’s up with you and Ben?” Evie asks, and it’s like the Riff-Off night all over again, except this time she’s asking because Ben keeps sending looks their way.

Mal sighs. “Nothing’s up. We’re… we hang out here and there, but nothing more than that. We don’t like each other that way, or anything.” She says it like a promise, because it’s true, and like, she’s still very much crushing on Evie, thank you very much, so she wants to make sure the girl has the right idea. Or whatever.

Evie looks a little relieved at that, and Mal can’t help herself but to press, “Why so interested?” She grins.

“I’m not!” Evie answers quickly, too quickly, and Mal raises an eyebrow, “I mean, um – the oath. And you’re my friend, so. I, uh, care about that stuff.”

Mal absolutely doesn’t buy that, and she shoots Audrey and Chad a pointed look over Evie’s shoulder, as if to make a point, and Evie licks her lips.

“In my defense, I did not know that was a thing,” Then, she leans over, “Audrey was always a little weird about Chad, though.” She confesses, and Mal can’t help the chuckle that comes out of her mouth at that. Evie seems to think that the situation is funny as well, because she joins in and they’re chuckling together and having this nice moment -  and then Chad ruins it.

“Gentlemen, I believe we were in the middle of our warm-up.” He says to the boys, and he clears his throat before he blows his own pitch pipe (and Mal can’t help but laugh under her breath as she thinks that it makes absolute sense that Audrey and him have whatever it is they do), until he’s singing ‘ _suck my balls_ ’ in scales to Audrey, and like, what the fuck was that.

But Audrey doesn’t miss a beat, as she takes a breath and then she’s singing back to him, doing her own scales, “ _Lick my ass_.”

Everyone in the bus stare at her, shocked, and Evie looks like she wants to laugh. Audrey looks around the bus, mouthing a ‘what?’ to the girls as the boys jump back into singing their ‘suck my balls’ warm up, and Audrey gives the Bellas an expectant look, and they all sigh before they sing back the warm up their leader came up with in response.

They try to out warm-up each other as the ride goes on.

-

The audience is dozing off during their set, and Mal looks to the right to see the members of whatever acapella group that performed before them mocking their choreography and their song, and that pretty much helps her make her own decision.

She’s always been a bit impulsive, not really thinking about the consequences of her actions before she acts on instinct, and that’s pretty much what happens when she decides to turn The Sign into a mash-up with Bulletproof, taking a deep breath before she starts singing the verses of the other song, matching her pitch with Audrey’s, and she doesn’t notice it when Evie glances back at her, surprised, nor the confused look Uma gives her, but she does catch the glare Audrey sends her as she turns to get to her mark, and she matches it with her own defiant one.

They finish their set, and the audience is cheering and positively beaming at them, looking far more awake than they did at the beginning of their performance. They take a bow and Mal prepares herself for the wrath of Audrey.

And sure enough, they don’t take two steps out of the stage before Audrey is completely fuming, following after Mal with fury in her eyes.

“What the hell, Mal? Were you _trying_ to screw us up?”

Mal was expecting this sort of reaction, but she still can’t believe it, “Are you serious?”

“Newsflash, this isn’t the Mal show!” Audrey snaps, and Mal notes that she hasn’t seen the girl this upset before. She feels a little bad, but not enough to regret doing what she did.

“Okay, I’m sorry that I messed you up, but in case you didn’t notice, everyone pretty much dozed off during our set.” She argues.

“It’s not your job to decide what we do and when we do it,” She rebuts, quickly, and then she adds, “Why don’t you ask the rest of the girls how they felt about your little improvisation?”

Mal glances around the group, almost as if she’s just remembered they were there, and they’re all shuffling awkwardly for a moment, avoiding her eyes.

Mal grows frustrated. “Uma?”

Uma, who’d been trying to avoid her eyes, looks at her and nods, “It was cool,” she reassures her, and Mal senses a but before she says it, “but it did take us a little bit by surprise.” She admits, in a low voice, glancing nervously at Audrey.

Mal’s face drops, and Audrey takes that cue, “Yeah!  A lot by surprise!”

Uma makes a face, raising her thumb and index finger in ‘small’ motion and mutters, almost as if scared of Audrey but not wanting to hurt Mal, “a little”, and it kind of settles Mal’s stomach a little bit. Audrey ignores that, and she turns to Evie, who’s watching them with wary eyes.

“I told you she wasn’t a Bella.”

Evie immediately steps up to her, and puts a hand on the girl’s shoulder, as if to stop her from like, jumping Mal or something as drastic. “Audrey, don’t-“

Mal’s had enough of that, too. She rolls her eyes, and snaps. “No, that’s okay, Evie. I mean…” She gives Evie a sarcastic smile when the girl meets her eyes, hand still on her friend’s shoulder, “You don’t have to pretend you have a say in the group, right?”

Evie looks hurt by her words, but Mal won’t take it back. She means what she said, and she thinks that Evie needs to hear that so she can start standing up for herself, because if she doesn’t, Audrey might just try and eat her alive. They stare at each other for a beat, until Audrey’s speaking again.

“Your attitude sucks, you’re a Grade-A pain in my ass, and I know you’re hooking up with Ben!”

She looks over Mal’s shoulder as she says his name, and Mal looks behind her to see Ben looking up at the mention of his name. The boy doesn’t do anything, though, because he seems to sense the tension between the girls. Mal rolls her eyes, and she turns back to Audrey.

“That’s rich, coming from you.” She doesn’t deny anything, though, because it doesn’t matter. Audrey falters, but almost immediately she’s full on glaring again, and there’s an awkward silence between them until Carlos, Ben’s roommate, enters from backstage, an earpiece on his head as he holds the schedule in his hands.

“Trebles, time to bring the pain.” He says, not noticing the tension. The Trebles head to the door, save for Chad, and Mal doesn’t know what else she’s supposed to say.

It feels like the end, which is ridiculous because she wasn’t even that invested to begin with, but she immediately knows that that’s not true and that this group - these girls – meant more to her than she’d realized.

She can feel the tears coming, so before she lets them out in front of everyone, she says, “If this is what I get for trying…” and then she turns around and leaves the room.

She vaguely hears Carlos calling after her, but she’s already crying and she doesn’t want anyone else to see her like this.

Dude, seriously.

_Fuck_ college and _fuck_ acapella.

-

The only person Mal talks to these days is Zevon.

They haven’t really talked much since Mal started working at the station, just small talk here and there, but ever since Mal had her fallout with seemingly every single friend she’s made since the beginning of the year and there wasn’t a lot of Bellas stuff to take her time, she had started picking up more shifts at the station, consequently hanging out a lot more with her boss without Ben’s company.

Zevon is nice, a little funny and he knows a lot about music, and their tentative friendship had kick started on a rainy Thursday morning in which Mal had woken up and tuned into the radio station and much to her surprise, one of her latest mixes that she’d given the boy was playing through the speakers.

She’d gone over to the station to ask him about it, ask him what he thought of it, and the boy had given her a pearly white grin and told her that her mix might possibly be his favorite so far, even better than the official remix of that song. (Mal agreed with him).

Ben had called off work on a Saturday morning, saying that he had to pack for spring break and Zevon had decided to pick up where he had left off on stacking and joined Mal outside of the booth, and it was nice. Zevon talked about music in the same way that Mal did, and he was as interested in mixing and producing as she seemed to be, which was nice.

They were in the middle of a conversation about the proper equipment when Zevon had asked her about Ben, curiously asking if everything was okay between them because they seemed off lately, not like themselves. Mal told him what happened, and Zevon had turned out to be a surprisingly good listener, even if Mal was a little surprised at her own self for actually opening up to someone else, but figured that because Zevon hadn’t been involved in any of the drama, he was the best choice to go to.

“I’m like, done with that acapella shit. I hate how much time I wasted on that.” Mal said, bitterly, and Zevon gave her a sympathetic smile in response.

He watched her for a few seconds, and then, “You said you’re staying here for Spring Break, right?” He asked, and when Mal nodded, he gave her a smile, “Why don’t you take the night shift? Take over the booth; you can play whatever you want. Your music, whatever. Place’s all yours if you want it.”

Mal accepts, obviously, and they go back to their work until a thought strikes Mal, and she furrowed her eyebrows curiously before asking, “Hey, why’d you decide to finally play my music?”

Zevon pauses his shuffling through CDs for a second, before he resumes, “I got around to listening to some of it, thought it was solid, played it.” He shrugs, and then he gives her a sheepish smile, as if afraid of continuing but deciding to anyway, “Plus Ben kept pushing me to listen to it. Said he wouldn’t leave me alone until I did.”

Mal pauses her own stacking as she takes this in for a second before she lets out a humorless chuckle and shakes her head. “Ben,” She repeats, and she almost wants to cry because she misses him. Zevon seems to sense that she needs a moment, because he excuses himself to go to the bathroom and Mal stands there, in that dark and dusty room, and not for the first time she wishes she wasn’t so fucking terrible at keeping people around.

-

The campus is deserted during Spring Break, and it very much looks and feels like Mal’s life had been for the better part of the last two weeks. Jordan had gone back home, so she couldn’t even count with her roommate’s company, either. She mostly slept during the day and then during the night she’d go to the radio station and play her own music, and like.

This felt fucking lonely, and a thought struck Mal that maybe if she had gone to LA, this is what her life would probably be like every day.

She doesn’t like that.

Mal is a creature of habit, always has been. She’s never really had many friends, never being really good in social interactions, but she’s never like, craved other people’s company either, so it worked pretty well. Mal was okay with being alone and doing things on her own, and that’s how she’s always been.

Until.

Until a girl with brown hair and beautiful brown eyes barged into her shower stall, demanding her to sing with her and convincing her to join an acapella group, and showing that maybe having other people around wasn’t so bad.

And even before then, when her mom had told her to join in and make memories… she wishes her mom had warned her about how hurtful making memories and joining in could be, sometimes.

She’s sitting in the empty booth, playing her own mixes, and she feels oddly unsatisfied. Almost empty, and she hates it. She hates it because this is exciting, this is good, and this is what she’d wanted to do since the beginning. But it fucking sucks, because she wishes she could share this moment with someone.

She wishes she could text Ben or Evie the good news and just _know_ that they’d be excited in response, that they would even bother opening her message. But she hasn’t talked to either of them - or anyone for that matter - since the big fallout, and like.  She’s pretty sure they’re no longer friends, or whatever.

And it fucking hurts, honestly. Because Mal is a creature of habit, and they’d become part of her routine, even if she hadn’t realized it then. They were part of her life now, a part that she actually enjoyed, believe it or not, and like.

She misses them. She misses laughing with Ben, and teasing him, and just having him around. Mal realizes, with a roll of her eyes and a watery, sad laugh, that Ben had been right.

He _was_ her best friend.

And then there was Evie, with her Disney Princess smile and voice, with her teasing winks and no respect for boundaries or personal space – the girl who quite literally barged into Mal’s life and made her join the _last_ thing she ever thought she’d ever join, made her _sing_ in front of people and made her want to actually _care_ about something for once – she fucking misses Evie, as well.

She misses all the Bellas, really. Even Audrey – and that’s like, fucking surprising, actually. Mal never thought in a million years she would actually miss the psycho leader of the acapella group she thought as lame in the beginning, but here she is.

Mal knows deep inside she’s already made her decision, but she only acknowledges it twenty minutes later while she’s shuffling through a few CDs inside the booth and her hands land on _The Breakfast Club_ soundtrack.

-

It’s a few days later, Spring Break is over, and Mal is nervously on her way towards Ben’s dorm when her phone buzzes in her jacket pocket signaling a new message, and she grabs it and presses the power button to see Evie’s contact name.

Mal realizes she’s holding her breath as she unlocks the phone to open the girl’s message, her eyes scanning the message’s content as a smile slowly grows on her lips.

_“hey mal, good news!!!  i know we left things kinda messy & we prob need to talk it over, but  WE’RE IN THE FINALS!!! The kid from footnotes wasnt legit, so theyre declassified & we get their place :’) show up at rehearsals if u want to, same time as always, the whole day xx” _

She knows that rebuilding the relationship she had with the girls before won’t be easy, especially having disappeared from their radar after the semifinals – Uma had tried contacting her a few times after that, but after Mal had repeatedly ignored her or just acted detached in the few occasions she didn’t completely shut her down, she’d given up.

Mal doesn’t blame them, she knows that that’s on her, and she knows that just walking in there and acting like nothing happened won’t work, but she hopes that it’s not too late for her to fix things with everyone.

Starting by Ben.

She stands in front of his door, and she can smell the popcorn coming from inside, and it makes her smile a little. She knocks twice, and waits.

There’s no answer.

Mal sighs, but knocks again.

Still no answer.

“Ben, I know you’re in there. I can smell the popcorn.” She calls out, and then there’s a beat, “Ben, come on.”

And then she can hear muffled low voices, and then the sound of steps coming from inside, and suddenly the door is opening and she is face to face with Ben.

She barely notices Harry sitting on Ben’s bed, focusing on the computer in front of them, what looks like _The Breakfast Club_ paused on the screen. The right corner of Mal’s lips raise a little at that. Ben clears his throat, and her eyes snap back in his direction.

“I tried to call you. I left you a bunch of messages.” She starts, and Ben nods, but doesn’t say anything. His expression is completely blank, but his eyes are studying Mal.

Okay, so this won’t be easy.

There’s an awkward beat, and then Mal breaks, “I’m sorry for shutting you out and treating you like I did, you didn’t deserve that at all. You’re like, the greatest guy I’ve ever met, and you made Zevon listen to my music and you’ve helped me with so many things even though you don’t know you have, and like, that’s my fault too because I never told you. And yet you still stuck by me, even though I hate movies and I’m the worst best friend in the world, and I’m sorry, I’m not even making sense anymore, but if you still feel like dealing with my socially inept and incoherent ass, I’d like to try this bi-bros thing again.” She says it all in one breath, her eyes welling up with tears as she does so, and she doesn’t even know, or remember, half of the things she said. But she knows she means every single one of them.

Ben seems to know this too, because he gives her a smile and then he shakes his head, laughing a little, “You know, this is the most I’ve ever heard you speak.”

She chuckles, and then he turns serious. “Mal, you’re not the worst best friend in the world. Maybe in the country, but not the world,” He winks, and Mal rolls her eyes at him as he continues, “But for real now. You’re not the worst best friend in the world, I won’t deny that you hurt my feelings with what you said, but I forgive you, because that’s what friends do, Mal. They forgive each other, and then they move on. They don’t shut people out.” The _like you did_ is implied there, and she knows it. Ben gives her a small smile, then, “I’ve missed you and your lovable socially inept ass. There’s a lot that’s happened in the days we haven’t talked that I got to catch you up on.” He winks, subtly nodding his head towards Harry, who’s pretending like he’s not listening but the small smile on his face is a giveaway, and Mal grins and nods, agreeing with him.

And then, Ben is holding out his arms and she’s walking into them – shocker: _willingly_ , - and he’s hugging her tightly and she can’t help but squeeze him tight. They break apart shortly after that, and then Ben is looking at her seriously again, “Have you talked to the girls yet?”

Mal shakes her head no, and he sighs, “As much as I love dark and broody and as you put it, socially inept Mal, pushing people away as soon as they start showing you that they care is not good. That means you have to put yourself out there and be honest about what you’re feeling, Mal.” He says, and Mal nods, because she knows he’s right. She knows that if she wants to keep these girls around, and keep _him_ around, she’ll have to start being more vocal and actually be an active part of her friendships.

“Thanks for being so great, Ben.” She says, her voice the most honest it’s ever been, and Ben only smiles and hugs her again. When he starts playfully squeezing her too hard, she pushes him away, “Now go back to your date, you big dork.”

Ben flushes, but he doesn’t deny or protest, and Mal catches a smirk forming on Harry’s face over Ben’s shoulder. She chuckles amusedly to herself and turns to leave. Before she leaves completely, though, she gives Ben one last look and asks, “I’ll call you later?” the _‘will you answer?’_ is implied, and Ben seems to catch it.

He smiles and nods, and says, “I’ll be waiting anxiously for your call.”

Mal rolls her eyes and mutters a ‘dork’ under her breath, but she feels lighter now that she knows she has her best friend back. She leaves, a small smile on her face that quickly fades when she remembers she still has to fix things with a few more people. She hopes they’ll be as receiving as Ben was.

_God_ , this whole being a good person and making an effort to keep people around is like, fucking exhausting.

She needs a nap.

-

Maleficent looks surprised to see her standing in front of her house.

Even more surprised when Mal tells her she needs her.

They walk in her mother’s large house – a house that Mal’s only been to a handful of times – and the older blonde leads them towards the kitchen, where a cup of coffee beside a newspaper that her mom had probably been reading before Mal knocked on her door sit on the counter, and Maleficent quickly grabs another cup and pours some coffee in it, before setting it in front of Mal. She grabs a few sugar packets, then, and hands them to the girl, before she wordlessly walks over to the fridge and grabs the cream from it, and Mal smiles a little because she didn’t think her mom remembered how she took her coffee.

Maleficent only smiles at her as she prepares the girl’s coffee, and then, “Are you gonna talk, kiddo?”

And then Mal is taking a deep breath and telling her mom everything. From the day at the activities fair and meeting Audrey and Evie, to Evie barging into her shower – to which her mom only raises an eyebrow at – and convincing her to join the Bellas, to Uma’s jokes and how Audrey is annoying but she’s kinda funny sometimes, in a completely psychopath way, and how Jane never says anything above a whisper but is incredible at beatboxing, to Lonnie and how Mal worries that she’s not aware of Uma’s crush on her, and then to Evie, and about how Evie is the most talented, kindest, prettiest girl that Mal’s ever met and how she wishes she hadn’t ruined everything with them, and how she _knows_ that Evie deserves someone better than her but doesn’t want to see the girl with anyone else, but they haven’t talked since the day everything blew up on her face – save from the text she got earlier, - and she doesn’t know how to fix everything.

Her voice is breaking when she finishes, her mouth dry from speaking for so long, and she takes a sip from her coffee as her mom watches her in silence for a moment.

“I’ve never seen you like this before.” She states, her eyes thoughtful but kind. Mal shrugs.

“Yeah, no one’s more surprised than me, but I ended up really liking those girls.” _Especially one girl in particular,_ but she doesn’t say that.

“And you thought quitting was the answer?” Maleficent asks, not unkindly, but Mal reacts.

“Seriously? You can say that to me?”

Her mother rolls her eyes, “Oh, come on, Mal, that’s so unfair,” she says, and her voice sounds exhausted.

There’s a beat in which they don’t say anything, but they both know that it’s time to address what it’s been in between them for so long.

“You left us.” Mal states, “You left me with my dad, who’s never around, by the way. You left _me._ ”

Maleficent nods, owning it, “I know. I did. Your father and I… I tried to make it work. We both did, but in the end, we just weren’t meant to be together. And I left you, I know I did, but I didn’t have the resources I needed to take you with me, Mal. Not the same way your father did.” Her mother says, her eyes pleading and sad, but honest, “And leaving you behind wasn’t my finest moment, but I tried to call you. I even learned how to text for you, but you only shut me out.”

Mal sniffs, and says, “Yeah. Well, I pretty much shut the whole world out. Don’t take it personally.”

Maleficent smiles, and Mal gives her a small smile in return.

“It’s just easier.” Mal adds after a moment. Maleficent nods.

“But it’s also really lonely.” Her mother responds, as if she knows, as if she understands, and this takes Mal by surprise. Before she can say anything though, her mom continues, “Well, I’m trying to make up for it now. Which is probably why I’ve been so stingy about you going to LA. So if that’s what you still want, I’ll support you.”

The younger blonde lets out a watery, tired laugh, and she puts her head in her hands as she asks, “What do I do?”

Her mother gives her a kind smile, “That’s up to you. This is one of those hard decisions, but, speaking from personal experience… if you’re going to leave something, _or someone,_ you care about behind… make sure you do it the right way.”

Mal nods. There’s a beat, and then Maleficent is giving her a kind of smile that Mal wasn’t familiar with. “What?” She asks, a little weirded out.

“You know I’m proud of you, right?”

That was probably the last thing Mal expected to hear from the woman today, especially after what she’d told her. So that’s what makes her frown incredulously and say, “Proud? Of me?”

Maleficent seems to be amused by her daughter’s incredulity, because she nods her head, smile still in place, and says, “Yes, you weirdo. Proud of you.”

It feels nice, Mal decides, this moment between them. It’s something new for the both of them, but it’s nice. Mal knows that they still have a long way to go, things to overcome together and things to talk through – but she knows now, sitting in her mom’s kitchen, that in the long run, they’ll be okay.

And that brings a smile onto her own face, and then because even though she’s like, learning how to deal with emotions and all that, she’s still _her,_ so she says, “do we have to like, hug now?”, in this sarcastic tone of voice, and Maleficent rolls her eyes at her but stands, that smile still in place.

Mal meets her mother halfway, and she’s so grateful to have her mom there, she hugs her with both arms.

-

Mal leaves her mom’s house nearby Auradon University with a smile on her face and feeling better than she’s ever felt – and with a promise that Mal would spend the next weekend she had free (assuming everything went well with the Bellas) with her mother.

The thought of the Bellas and what would be waiting for her once she showed up to rehearsal made Mal’s smile falter for a second, but she figured that she had already gone all this way – already dealt with things she never thought she would have to -, what’s one more confrontation?

That fuels her courage, and not much longer than that she finds herself walking into the Bellas’ rehearsing room, staring in shock at the scene before her.

Way ahead, first thing she notices, Uma has Audrey and Evie in a headlock on the floor, as the two girls try to reach for the pitch pipe as Lonnie stands over them, panic written all over her face as she incessantly blows the rape whistle. A few steps from them, on something that looks – and smells – absolutely disgusting ( _was that vomit?_ ), Jane can be found, as if doing snow angels. The other girls, Freddie, CJ and Ally can be found at the back of the main attraction, in the middle of their own argument. Mal frowns.

“Guys!” She calls out, but Lonnie was still blowing the fucking whistle and Evie and Audrey shouting expletives at each other while Uma yells at them to stop, and no one hears her, so she tries again, “ _GUYS! STOP!_ What is going on?”

This seems to get their attention, and they all freeze and turn to find Mal standing at the door, Lonnie’s whistle dropping from her mouth as she does so.

Audrey is quick to get a grip of herself, breaking free from Uma’s headlock and standing up, wiping at – _seriously, was that vomit?_ – her shirt.

“Nothing,” She says, “This is a Bellas rehearsal.”

Mal watches as the other girl tries to grab a hold on herself, wiping the corner of her mouth and – _Jesus fuck, did she just projectile vomit again? And why was Jane lying on it? –_ and she nods. “I know, I just…” she trails off, stepping into the room as she watches the girls regroup and get a hold of themselves.

Her eyes meet Evie’s, who’s helping Uma stand, and she continues, “…wanted to say that I’m sorry.” That gets everyone’s attention, and Audrey gives her this look that gives her the will to continue, “What I did was a really dick move, and I shouldn’t have changed the set without asking you guys. And I definitely shouldn’t have left.” Uma nods at her when she says this, and she knows she’s forgiven for blowing the girl off, simple as that, but then she looks at Evie, whose eyes she can’t read, and continues, “I let you down and I’m really sorry.” She takes a deep breath, then, and turns back to Audrey, “And Audrey, if you’ll have me, I want back in.”

Audrey only raises an eyebrow at her, but there’s something about her expression that she can’t quite read, as the girl’s expression is completely set in stone. The other girls look at her expectantly, but Audrey doesn’t waver.

This feels strangely familiar, and Mal nods when she remembers why that was.

She turns to leave, and then looks back, hoping that Audrey would have wavered. When she notices that no, Audrey still looks the same, she grabs a chair and scrapes it across the floor.

Evie and Uma are looking at Audrey with expectant looks; their arms crossed over their chests, waiting for Audrey to put a stop to it, and still nothing. Uma looks close to tears, and Evie is giving Audrey an unreadable look, but Audrey’s eyes are glued to Mal’s retreating form.

There’s a beat, and Mal’s almost out the door when they hear it: “Wait.”

The blonde stops immediately and turns around, leaving the chair where she stopped. “Thank you, that would’ve been embarrassing,” she says as she walks towards the girls.

“Mal, I know that I’ve been hard on you,” Audrey starts, “okay? I know that I’ve been hard on everyone here.” She says, looking towards the two girls on her left. Evie gives her a look, and Uma avoids her eyes. Audrey turns back to Mal, “But I am my father’s daughter. And he always said: _If at first you don’t succeed, pack your bags_.”

There’s a moment of silence, then, and the girls look around at each other as Audrey walks over to a nearby chair and sits on it, trying to fight her tears. Uma mouths ‘that’s rough’ to Evie, and the brunette only nods. Mal walks over to Audrey, and the other girls follow her steps.

“I get it, mine gets on me, too.” She says, and Audrey looks up at her, “I mean, not like that, but…” she trails off as she gives the other girl a tentative smile, “I guess we just don’t really know that much about each other. Well, most of you, really.” She adds after a glance around the room.

“Well, I’ll confess something you don’t know about me,” Lonnie speaks up, tentatively. Everyone perks up at that, interested, and they watch as she takes a deep breath and says, “I have a lot of sex.”

Uma rolls her eyes, “We been knew that.”

Lonnie pauses, “Only because I just told you.”

Uma is about to answer when Mal cuts in, “This is a good idea. That was a pretty bad example, but this is a good idea.” She motions for the girls to gather around and take seats around her and Audrey, forming a circle, and she continues, “Why don’t we all just go around the room and we can all say something about ourselves that nobody else knows.”

Uma nods and stands from her chair, “Okay, I got something.” The girls look at her, and Mal thinks she knows where this is going, “This is pretty hard for me to admit to you guys. But for the last two years… I’ve had a serious gambling problem.”

All the girls look at her, genuinely shocked, not expecting the girl to confess _that._

She seems to notice this, because Uma rolls her eyes, “Y’all know damn and well that I’m a lesbian, so can you please show a bitch some support? Damn.”

Mal gives her a smile as the other girls mutter their apologies, and Uma sends her a grin as she sits back down. And then the blonde winks when she notices Lonnie curling up to sit closer to Uma, and the other girl flushes a little in response.

She turns back to the group, “Anyone else?”

Jane raises her hand, and they all glance at her expectantly.

“I ate my twin in the womb.”

Everyone reacts, and Mal is pretty sure they all heard her very well this time.

There’s a beat, and then Mal decides to move on, “Anyway… I’ll go.” She pauses, and then she meets Evie’s eyes, “I’ve never been one of those girls that had a lot of friends who are girls… or just friends, in general,” she chuckles to herself, “And I do now. And that’s pretty cool.” She smiles, feeling awkward and vulnerable, but it pays off when she sees Uma and Evie’s wide smiles, and Audrey trying to fight her own. “So. That’s me. Someone else, please go.”

They look around, waiting for the next person, and Mal thinks she sees Evie opening her mouth to speak up when Audrey takes a deep breath and stands up, closing her eyes and blurting out: “I’ve been in love with Chad for two years now.”

There’s a pause, and Mal thinks she hears Evie snort but she can’t be too sure.

“I never acted on it because of the oath, but I’ve wanted him since I saw him on Hood Night during my freshman year.” She confesses, tears in her eyes, and Mal like, actually feels bad for her.

“Dude, forget about the stupid oath. If you want to be with him and he wants to be with you, then you should be together.” She says, her voice kind, and when the girls look at her with raised eyebrows and Audrey looks like she’s seeing Mal for the first time, she adds, shrugging, “Or whatever.”

“But-“

“Audrey.” Evie interrupts, “Let it go.”

Audrey nods and sits back down, mouthing a small ‘sorry’ to Evie as she does so.

There’s a moment of silence, and CJ is about to speak up when Evie interrupts her, taking an overly dramatic breath and standing up, very reminiscent of Audrey just moments ago, “My turn. Over spring break, I took the courageous decision to remove my nodes.” She announces, and Audrey gasps. “I know.” Evie closes her eyes and continues, “The doctor said that I can’t sing above a G sharp, maybe, ever.” Her voice chokes up at the end.

Mal watches in horror as Evie completely breaks down, wanting nothing more than to stand and hold the girl in her arms.

Evie then continues, her voice punctuated by the sobs she was trying to choke down, “I thought. The season. Was over.”

The girls watch sadly as Evie sits back down next to Audrey, and Lonnie reaches over to touch her shoulder in comfort as Audrey takes her hand in her own, trying to comfort her best friend.

Mal’s never wanted to cry as much as she did now, looking at a sad Evie, and there’s a moment of silence before suddenly Audrey stands, determined look on her face as she looks at Mal.

“Mal?”

Mal readily stands, too, nodding at Audrey to show her that she was listening and all in. Audrey surprises her, then, by asking the very last question that Mal would ever have expected to hear from her.

“What do we do?”

And to surprise her even further, the girl throws the pitch pipe to her. Mal tries to catch it, seriously, she does, but she’s always been shit at sports. So.

So the pitch pipe flies towards the huge disgusting pool of vomit and Mal winces.

She turns to Audrey, who gives her an apologetic look and says, “Yeah, maybe not here.”

-

Evie’s eyes don’t leave hers while they’re singing their impromptu mash-up of a Bruno Mars song that Audrey chose with the Nelly track that Mal chose. Mal doesn’t look away, either, unless when she has to look at one of the girls to guide them through the song. But when she’s not doing that, she’s looking at Evie.

And they sound fucking incredible. They sound like they did during No Diggity, all those weeks ago, and Mal notes with a smile that it’s only fitting that they’re standing in the same place as they did then. They have smiles on their faces, and they all look the way Mal feels – excited, happy. They’re having fun, and being awesome while they do it.

When the song is over, there’s a pause in which they all smile at each other, and then Audrey is putting her hands in and the girls are following.

And then they count to three – not after three, _on_ three. And they get it right.

And then a weird noise is coming out of Evie’s mouth, and they all look at her strangely and she looks shocked, and it turns out that Evie’s vocal cords are messed up but at least they’re not like, completely lost to the world, and she can actually hit some pretty badass bass lines.

And then Jane is telling – _telling,_ not whispering _–_ that she knows of something that can help them out, and everyone’s pretty shocked that they’ve just heard her speak up for the first time.

So shocked, they forget to respond to what she just said, until Uma speaks up, raising a hand, “Uh, excuse me bitch, you don’t need to shout,” and then they’re all laughing and hugging and Mal feels like this whole having friends and making an effort thing is not so bad.

-

It’s the day before the finals, and they’re all piled out in one big bedroom at an hotel next to the place of the event, having divided the room and its bed, pullout sofa and floor between each other. They’re all sprawled out everywhere, the room dead silent, and Mal can’t tell if everyone’s asleep or just lying there, trying to contain their own nerves.

Mal and Audrey had shared responsibilities to make it all easier on them – Mal would take care of the music and all-things-performing while Audrey took care of the organization for their trip, and it worked pretty well. They stopped butting heads, only playfully doing so to blow off steam after a long day, and Mal was like, pretty proud of them. She really wants to win this competition, to prove to herself that she could lead them to victory.

And she realizes, too, that she also kind of wants to win so Audrey could have this moment, too. Or like, whatever.

Mal’s a ball of energy, overthinking and second guessing every single thing she’s come up with over the last two weeks, and she feels like she might explode at any moment.

She feels movement beside her on the bed, and then Evie is speaking, her voice barely a whisper, “You should be sleeping. Resting up before the big day.”

“You should listen to your own advice.” Mal whispers back.

Evie ignores her, “It’s okay to be nervous,” She says, and Mal can’t tell if she’s saying that to her own sake or for Mal’s. She recalls, then, all those months ago, Evie telling her about her own hopes for this day. Her mouth twists.

“It’s just different when it’s not just me making music in my room, or whatever,” She takes a nervous breath and lets it out slowly, “There’s no one else watching and no one else to let down.”

“You’re not gonna let anyone down,” Evie whispers firmly, “You’re amazing, and the arrangement you did is amazing, and the choreography is amazing. If we don’t win, which isn’t happening because we are winning this, it’s not gonna be because of your arrangement.”

“Yeah?” Mal turns on her side to look at Evie, their foreheads almost touching.

“Yeah.” Evie nods, their foreheads brushing together a bit as she does so. Mal is just a few seconds from just saying ‘fuck it’ and leaning in when Evie leans back and yawns, covering her mouth with her hand as she does so. Mal lets out a breathy laugh. “Think you can get some sleep, now?”

Mal nods. There’s a pause, and then she whispers teasingly, “Can I be the bigger spoon?”

“Grow a few centimeters, first.” Evie shoots back, and she scoots closer to Mal. The blonde turns around, and Evie hugs her from behind. “Night, M.”

Mal only squeezes the girl’s hand that was resting on her stomach in response, and she smiles when the girl releases a happy sigh from behind her.

Sleep comes easy after that.

-

They aca-fucking won.

They fucking won the finals, placing first, huge fucking trophy and all. And like. Mal can’t even stop herself from screeching a ‘ _fuck yeah, aca-bitches’_ and actually like, hugging Audrey as they’re declared the winners. Like, this moment is a moment for like, _fucking_ history. Like, people should make documentaries about this moment, and shit.

And like, Mal’s one second away from letting Uma convince her into getting matching ‘aca-bitches’ tattoos on their arms, that’s how fucking hyped she fucking is. _Bitch_.

And so much happened in such a short amount of time, that Mal has to like, take a moment to recollect herself so she can make sure that she’s not like, blacking out or anything anytime soon.

It went down a little like this:

The Trebles performed before them. Ben aced his solo, and so did Carlos (who’d joined the Trebles, apparently, and Chad was nowhere to be seen? She makes a note to ask Ben about that later), and when they’re done Ben and Harry exchange this cute hug, and Mal thinks they’re adorable, but she’s gonna have to crush their dreams and happiness tonight because she wants to win. So.

Then, the Bellas are forming a circle and Mal’s saying something cheesy and corny and unlike her at all, and Uma is giving her a teasing grin and then calling them all a bunch of dicks, or something, and they laugh and then Audrey is saying ‘hands in, Bellas’ and it works out again, and it’s all very nice.

And then they’re performing, and they sound fucking incredible, and they all hit the right notes and no one else messes up the choreography, but most of all, they’re having fun and it looks it. The audience is like, fucking surprised and shocked and Mal’s proud of herself for causing that.

And then she finds Ben’s eyes when she starts the Don’t You Forget About Me bit she managed to snuck in her mix, and Ben’s actually fucking laughing, and then he’s not laughing anymore because Harry grabs his hand as Mal sings the song, _the_ song, and she even like, manages to give him a pointed look while she nails that performance because he seems to gather himself and understand the hint she’s giving him, because he’s raising his fist and Harry’s smiling at him and Mal’s pretty sure that just made her the greatest best friend in the world.

Which was totally her intention, by the way. A thank you of sorts to Ben for having insisted that Zevon heard her mixes and like, not completely giving up on Mal for being such an emotionally stunted bitch for so long.

And then the song ends, and everyone’s standing and applauding and cheering, and Mal feels so fucking good and happy that she just pulls Evie closer and like, kisses her with all of her might.

There are fireworks, the world stops and all that shit, and like. It’s fucking iconic.

And then Evie’s telling her about how she told her she knew they’d be fast friends, and Mal’s rolling her eyes and saying something that’s like “shut the fuck up and kiss me, you aca-weirdo”, or something as cool as that, and Evie complies.

And then they won, and were nominated the fucking greatest acapella group that’s ever existed in history of the world (not really, but Mal knows the truth) and now, while they’re all at the vacant pool area of the hotel and it’s like, almost 5AM or something ridiculous like that, giddy and drunk and Uma’s like, dead set on convincing them on getting the _aca-bitches_ tattoos, having managed to actually convince _Audrey,_ but not the other girls, which she claims is a shame because Audrey is cooler than them, now, and it brings out an offended ‘hey!’ from the girl, Mal can’t help but feel like this is one of those moments her mom had told her so much about at the beginning of the year.

Evie curls up closer to her, watching with a small smile as Uma and Audrey tease each other back and forth, and says, “I can’t wait ‘til we win next year, Captain.”

Mal smiles down at her, her dreams of up and leaving everything behind to go to LA on the back of her mind, locked inside a little box to revisit once she’s like, graduated in college or whatever, because she actually enjoys having friends and being in an acapella group and going to college like some big loser, and says, “Me too.”

And it turns out her mom was right the whole time. Joining in and making memories was not so bad when you like, pulled your head out of your ass and joined an acapella group in college because this hot girl from the activities fair barged into your shower that one day and demanded you duet with her - or something like that.

Mal’s still kinda figuring it out.

“Uma, for the last time, nails aren’t a substitute for a tattoo needle, put that down.”

Mal looks up, then, to see a dejected Uma throwing a nail in the pool - _where did she even get that from? -_ as Audrey looks at her sternly, only to take a deep breath and say, “I said put that down, Uma, not throw it _in_ the pool! Go get it back!”

“God, it’s like I can’t catch a break!”

_Yeah_ , Mal decides as she watches on while Uma jumps in the pool to pick the nail up, holding a giggling Evie in her arms as Audrey yells at Uma for getting water on them while Lonnie helps Uma locate the nail in the water with her phone’s flashlight, _there’s no way in hell she’s leaving this behind._

(Turns out her mom was totally right about the whole sitting on the grass thing.

Who would’ve aca-fucking thought?)

**Author's Note:**

> I wish I could promise I won't write anything ever again but we know that's not happening any time soon, so until next time, bitches. Also, comments make me very happy and make my day. 
> 
> Happy new year! Be nice to yourselves.


End file.
